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High prevalence and diversity of pre‐ CTX Φ alleles in the environmental V ibrio cholerae O1 and O1 39 strains in the Z hujiang R iver estuary
Author(s) -
Wang Duochun,
Wang Xiaomei,
Li Baisheng,
Deng Xiaoling,
Tan Hailing,
Diao Baowei,
Chen Jingdiao,
Ke Bixia,
Zhong Haojie,
Zhou Haijian,
Ke Changwen,
Kan Biao
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
environmental microbiology reports
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.229
H-Index - 69
ISSN - 1758-2229
DOI - 10.1111/1758-2229.12121
Subject(s) - vibrio cholerae , prophage , lysogenic cycle , biology , cholera toxin , allele , microbiology and biotechnology , gene , el tor , genetics , cholera , bacteriophage , bacteria , escherichia coli
Summary Toxigenic conversion of environmental V ibrio cholerae strains through lysogenic infection by the phage CTX Φ is an important step in the emergence of new pathogenic clones. The precursor form of the CTX Φ phage, pre‐ CTX Φ, does not carry the cholera toxin gene. During our investigation, we frequently found pre‐ CTX Φ prophages in non‐toxigenic isolates in the serogroups of O1 and O1 39 strains in the Z hujiang estuary. We observed high amounts of sequence variation of rstR and gIII CTX in the pre‐ CTX Φ alleles as well as in the tcpA sequences within the strains. In addition, a new pre‐ CTX Φ allele, with a novel rstR sequence type and hybrid RS 2, was identified. Our findings show that active, complicated gene recombination and horizontal transfer of pre‐ CTX Φs occurs within V . cholerae environmental strains, which creates a complex intermediate pool for the generation of toxigenic clones in the estuarine environment.