Primary Adsorption Site of Phage PBS1: the Flagellum of Bacillus subtilis

Abstract

The adsorption of Bacillus subtiiis phage PBS1 was studied, and it was demonstrated that the primary adsorption site for this phage is the flagellum of B. subtilis. The capacity of flagella to function for motility may be lost without the loss of their capacity to adsorb the phage and permit infection. Deoxyribonucleic acid injection by the phage is inhibited by cyanide, suggesting the requirement for cellular energy in the infection process. Joys (9) and Frankel and Joys (7) recently suggested that the receptor site for phage PBS1 (16) is the flagellum of Bacillus subtilis. They correlated susceptibility to phage adsorption and infection with motility of the organism, and demonstrated that four flagella-less (fa-) mutants and one flagellated but nonmotile mutant (mot-) of B. subtilis do not adsorb PBS1. They concluded that functional flagella were required for phage adsorption. The extensive investigations of Meynell (11) and of Schade, Adler, and Ris (14) have shown that the chi phage of Salmonella also exhibits flagellotropic properties. Interest in this laboratory for the past several years has focused on the bacterial flagellum. For this reason, and because of the possible biological significance that phage adsorption on the bacterial flagellum might have, a more extensive investigation on the general properties of phage PBS1 was undertaken. MATERIALS AND METHODS Organisms and growth medium. B. subtilis strains SB19, SBI71, 168, and SC3, 4, 6, and 23 were used in these studies. SB19 is a streptomycin-resistant prototrophic derivative of 168. SB171 is afla-derivative of 168 (trp) obtained from E. Lederberg. Strains SC3, 4, 6, and 23 are paralyzed mutants of 168 whose flagella lack the long period helix (Martinez et al., submittedfor publication). The other flamutants used were from our collection. The medium used for

A receptor‐binding protein of Campylobacter jejuni bacteriophage NCTC 12673 recognizes flagellin glycosylated with acetamidino‐modified pseudaminic acid

“…Other phages that have been reported to recognize flagella and a second receptor on the cell body include C. jejuni phage F341 (Baldvinsson et al ., ), Bacillus phage PBS1 (Raimondo et al ., ), Rhizobium lupini phage 7‐7‐1 (Lotz et al ., ) and phage χ, which infects E. coli , Salmonella and Serratia (Iino and Mitani, ). Initially, these phages reversibly bind to host flagella and move along the filament to irreversibly bind to a second receptor on their host cell (Schade et al ., ; Rakhuba et al ., ; Baldvinsson et al ., ).…”

Complete genomic sequence and mass spectrometric analysis of highly diverse, atypical Bacillus thuringiensis phage 0305ϕ8–36

“…Alternatively, some of the extra proteins may function to facilitate flagella-dependent adsorption via the curly fibers (Ackermann and DuBow, 1987;Lindberg, 1973). Other tailed phages with long, curly fibers (e.g., PBS1, AR9, PBP1 and χ) use these fibers to adsorb reversibly to host flagella as a primary receptor before adsorbing to a secondary receptor on the cell wall (Ackermann and DuBow, 1987;Lindberg, 1973;Raimondo et al, 1968;Samuel et al, 1999;Schade et al, 1967). Additional possible functions of the extra 0305φ8-36 proteins are environmental interactions with genetic programming to enhance long-term virion viability in the absence of viable host [e.g., phage-phage interactions (Serwer et al, 2007a) or phage-clay interactions (Vettori et al, 1999)].…”

Bacteriophages of Bacillus subtilis.

“…Moreover, PBS1 can infect variants of the host which have modified teichoic acids or lack teichoic acid altogether (342). One other observation of interest is that apparently the adsorption of a phage particle to one flagellum of B. subtilis renders the entire complement of 15 to 20 flagella per cell nonmotile in less than 30 s. This paralysis can also be obtained with ghosts of PBS1 prepared by osmotic shock (237).…”