Screening for Highly Transduced Genes in Staphylococcus aureus Revealed Both Lateral and Specialized Transduction
Janine Zara Bowring, Yue Su, Ahlam Alsaadi, Sine Lo Svenningsen, Julian Parkhill, Hanne Ingmer
Abstract
Horizontal transfer of DNA between bacterial cells contributes to the spread of virulence and antibiotic resistance genes in human pathogens. For Staphylococcus aureus, bacterial viruses play a major role in facilitating the horizontal transfer. These viruses, termed bacteriophages, can transfer bacterial DNA between cells by a process known as transduction, which despite its importance is only poorly characterized. Here, we employed a transposon mutant library to investigate transduction in S. aureus. We showed that the genomic location of bacterial DNA relative to where bacteriophages integrated into that bacterial genome affected how frequently that DNA was transduced. Based on serial transduction of transposon mutant pools and direct sequencing of bacterial DNA in bacteriophage particles, we demonstrated both lateral and specialized transduction. The use of mutant libraries to investigate the genomic patterns of bacterial DNA transferred between cells could help us understand how horizontal transfer influences virulence and resistance development.