Lysogeny in nature: mechanisms, impact and ecology of temperate phages

Abstract

Viruses that infect bacteria (phages) can influence bacterial community dynamics, bacterial genome evolution and ecosystem biogeochemistry. These influences differ depending on whether phages establish lytic, chronic or lysogenic infections. Although the first two produce virion progeny, with lytic infections resulting in cell destruction, phages undergoing lysogenic infections replicate with cells without producing virions. The impacts of lysogeny are numerous and well-studied at the cellular level, but ecosystem-level consequences remain underexplored compared to those of lytic infections. Here, we review lysogeny from molecular mechanisms to ecological patterns to emerging approaches of investigation. Our goal is to highlight both its diversity and importance in complex communities. Altogether, using a combined viral ecology toolkit that is applied across broad model systems and environments will help us understand more of the diverse lifestyles and ecological impacts of lysogens in nature.

Review article: bacteriophages in gastroenterology—from biology to clinical applications

“…Phages can also be divided based upon their virion release strategy into either lytic or chronically released subgroups. Lytic phages release mature virions upon lysis of the host cell, while chronically released phages are characterised by a slow release of virions without obvious cell death . Consequently, four types of phages can be considered: (a) lytic phages, (b) chronically released phages, (c) lytic phages that display lysogenic cycles and (d) chronically released phages that display lysogenic cycles …”

“…Upon infection, temperate phages face a lysis‐lysogeny decision between virion production and host cell lysis (lytic cycle), or latency with inclusion of the phage genome within the host cell (lysogenic cycle) . A prophage is the genome of a phage during the lysogenic cycle and can persist in the host cell either through integration with the host cell genome or as an extrachromosomal prophage …”

A fast and reliable method for monitoring of prophage‐activating chemicals

“…They influence biogeochemical cycles (e.g. by the release of nutrients of lysed bacteria), and as a result, they are able to shape the composition and structure of the microbial community (Hambly and Suttle, 2005; Paul, 2008; Thingstad et al ., 2008; Rohwer and Thurber, 2009; Richter et al ., 2012; Aziz et al ., 2015; Howard‐Varona et al ., 2017). Phages can multiply in their hosts by two different life cycle strategies.…”

Bacterial Diversification in the Light of the Interactions with Phages: The Genetic Symbionts and Their Role in Ecological Speciation

“…However, some Mu-like phages regularly package a few kilobases of neighboring DNA, and thus specialized transduction seems to have become part of the life cycle of these phages. Generalized transduction rates are lowest when the multiplicity of infection is high, probably because cells that are transduced are still susceptible to infection by the surrounding viruses, while cells that are infected with viruses cannot be re-infected due to superinfection exclusion (Casjens and Hendrix, 2015;Howard-Varona et al, 2017).…”