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Temperature-dependent virus lifecycle choices may reveal and predict facets of the biology of opportunistic pathogenic bacteria.

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posted on 2018-08-09, 16:04 authored by Halil I. Egilmez, Andrew Yu Morozov, Martha R. J. Clokie, Jinyu Shan, Andrey Letarov, Edouard E. Galyov
Melioidosis, a serious illness caused by Burkholderia pseudomallei, results in up to 40% fatality in infected patients. The pathogen is found in tropical water and soil. Recent findings demonstrated that bacterial numbers can be regulated by a novel clade of phages that are abundant in soil and water. These phages differentially infect their bacterial hosts causing lysis at high temperatures and lysogeny at lower temperatures. Thus seasonal and daily temperature variations would cause switches in phage-bacteria interactions. We developed mathematical models using realistic parameters to explore the impact of phages on B. pseudomallei populations in the surface water of rice fields over time and under seasonally changing environmental conditions. Historical records were used to provide UV radiation levels and temperature for two Thailand provinces. The models predict seasonal variation of phage-free bacterial numbers correlates with the higher risk of melioidosis acquisition during the "warm and wet" season. We find that enrichment of the environment may lead to irregular large amplitude pulses of bacterial numbers that could significantly increase the probability of disease acquisition. Our results suggest that the phages may regulate B. pseudomallei populations throughout the seasons, and these data can potentially help improve the melioidosis prevention efforts in Southeast Asia.

Funding

This work was supported by the Wellcome Trust, UK (Grant number 092638/Z/10/Z). The experimental work on determination of the bacteriophage AMP1 adsorption kinetics was supported by the Russian Federal Agency of Scientific Organisations project #0104-2014-0109.

History

Citation

Scientific Reports, 2018, 8, 9642

Author affiliation

/Organisation/COLLEGE OF LIFE SCIENCES/School of Medicine/Department of Infection, Immunity and Inflammation

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Published in

Scientific Reports

Publisher

Nature Publishing Group

issn

2045-2322

eissn

2045-2322

Acceptance date

2018-06-08

Copyright date

2018

Available date

2018-08-09

Publisher version

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-27716-3

Notes

Supplementary information accompanies this paper at https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-27716-3

Language

en

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