Dominant Vibrio cholerae phage exhibits lysis inhibition sensitive to disruption by a defensive phage satellite

Abstract

Bacteriophages and their bacterial hosts are locked in a dynamic evolutionary arms race. Phage satellites, selfish genomic islands which exploit both host bacterium and target phage, further complicate the evolutionary fray. One such tripartite system involves the etiological agent of the diarrheal disease cholera - Vibrio cholerae, the predominant phage isolated from cholera patients - ICP1, and a phage satellite - PLE. When ICP1 infects V. cholerae harboring the integrated PLE genome, PLE accelerates host lysis, spreading the PLE while completely blocking phage production protecting V. cholerae at the population level. Here we identify a single PLE gene, lidI, sufficient to mediate accelerated lysis during ICP1 infection and demonstrate that LidI functions through disrupting lysis inhibition - an understudied outcome of phage infection when phages vastly outnumber their hosts. This work identifies ICP1-encoded holin and antiholin genes teaA and arrA respectively, that mediate this first example of lysis inhibition outside the T-even coliphages. Through lysis inhibition disruption, LidI is sufficient to limit the number of progeny phage produced from an infection. Consequently, this disruption bottlenecks ICP1 evolution as probed by recombination and CRISPR-Cas targeting assays. These studies link novel characterization of the classic phenomenon of lysis inhibition with a conserved protein in a dominant phage satellite, highlighting the importance of lysis timing during infection and parasitization, as well as providing insight into the populations, relationships, and evolution of bacteria, phages, and phage satellites in nature.\n\nImportanceWith increasing awareness of microbiota impacting human health comes intensified examination of, not only bacteria and the bacteriophages that prey upon them, but also the mobile genetic elements (MGEs) that mediate interactions between them. Research is unveiling evolutionary strategies dependent on sensing the milieu: quorum sensing impacts phage infection, phage teamwork overcomes bacterial defenses, and abortive infections sacrifice single cells protecting populations. Yet, the first discovered environmental sensing by phages, known as lysis inhibition (LIN), has only been studied in the limited context of T-even coliphages. Here we characterize LIN in the etiological agent of the diarrheal disease cholera, Vibrio cholerae, infected by a phage ubiquitous in clinical samples. Further, we show that a specific MGE, the phage satellite PLE, collapses LIN with a conserved protein during its anti-phage program. The insights gleaned from this work add to our expanding understanding of microbial fitness in natural contexts beyond the canonical bacterial genome and into the realm of antagonistic evolution driven by phages and satellites.