New article describing the only lytic phages known to infect the spirochete Leptospira

Posted on 6 août 2018 Updated on 6 août 2018

With our colleagues of the Institut Pasteur Paris we sequenced and analysed the first genomes of the lytic phages LE3 and LE4 that can infect the saprophyte Leptospira biflexa using the lipopolysaccharide O-antigen as receptor. Bioinformatics analysis showed that the 48-kb LE3 and LE4 genomes are similar and contain 62% genes whose function cannot be predicted.

Read the full paper online here

Figure 1

Transmission electron micrographs of leptophages. Morphology of leptophages (A) LE1, (B) LE3, and (C) LE4. Scale bar represents 100 nm. (D) Magnification of L. biflexa strain Patoc 1 (cell length of 10 µm) six hours after infection with phage LE4 (MOI=10). Arrowheads indicate representative phages. Scale bar represents 200 nm.

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Frédéric Veyrier obtained his M.Sc. degree from the INRS-Institut Armand Frappier Laval (Qc) on the metal homeostasis in different pathogens. He completed his PhD studies at McGill University, Montréal (Qc) on the evolution of the human pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis. He moved back to France in 2010 as a young researcher at the Institut Pasteur, Paris (France). His research focused on the common evolution of nasopharyngeal pathogens like Neisseria meningitidis, Haemophilus influenzae or Moraxella catarrhalis . Specifically, he is studying how bacterial metal transport and cell-wall have evolved to adjust to the stringent and competitive nasopharynx environment. He is now an associate professor at the INRS-Institut Armand Frappier in Canada continuing his work on human bacterial symbionts evolution.

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