Krit Khemayan. Study of lysogeny of bacteriophage VHS1 in Vibrio harveyi . Master's Degree(Biotechnology). Mahidol University. : Mahidol University, 2004.
Study of lysogeny of bacteriophage VHS1 in Vibrio harveyi
Abstract:
Exposure of a bacterial suspension to a temperate bacteriophage will result in
lysis of many cells and lysogenic conversion of some that contain a prophage
plasmid or prophage element integrated into the host bacterial chromosome. The
result is a bacterial clone of variable stability that may express genes from the
acquired prophage. In this study, the lysogenic bacteriophage VHS1 produced very
few, relatively unstable lysogenic clones of V. harveyi. These unstable clones
produced both infected (lysogenic) and uninfected (non-lysogenic) progeny clones
in the same culture. The uninfected clones were very stable and showed no lytic
plaques when lawns were challenged with VHS1. However, they did show turbid
plaques in dot plaque assays. Thus, they differed phenotypically from the original
parental isolate, suggesting that interaction with VHS1 resulted in permanent
genetic change. Despite this, the clones failed to show evidence of genetic material
from VHS1 by southern blot hybridization and PCR assay, suggesting that the
change had occurred in the host genome. Such clones may be called
pseudolysogenic since they show some phenotypic characteristics of lysogenic
clones but do not contain phage genes. This phenomenon has not been previously
reported and the mechanism for it is unknown. Experiments revealed that V.
harveyi clones lysogenized by VHS1 carried the prophage as an episome that did
not integrate into the host chromosome. The VHS1 prophage could be detected by
both southern blot hybridization and by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay.
This situation explained the rapid loss of virulence of lysogenic isolates on
continuous subculture in the laboratory