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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, July 2001, p. 3285-3290, Vol. 67, No. 7
Department of Marine Sciences, University of
Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602,1 and
Center of Marine Biotechnology, University of Maryland
Biotechnology Institute, Baltimore, Maryland 212022
Received 18 January 2001/Accepted 18 April 2001
The abundance of cyanophages infecting marine
Synechococcus spp. increased with increasing salinity in
three Georgia coastal rivers. About 80% of the cyanophage
isolates were cyanomyoviruses. High cross-infectivity was found
among the cyanophages infecting phycoerythrin-containing
Synechococcus strains. Cyanophages in the river estuaries
were diverse in terms of their morphotypes and genotypes.
Viruses are now known to be an
important microbial component that could regulate biological production
and species composition of bacterial and phytoplankton populations,
influence biogeochemical cycling, and mediate gene transfer between
microorganisms in aquatic ecosystems (1, 3, 8, 9, 16).
Unicellular cyanobacteria of the genus Synechococcus
are among the most abundant picophytoplankton and account for 5 to 30% of the primary production in the open ocean (12).
The concentrations of viruses or cyanophages which infect specific
strains of marine Synechococcus spp. typically range from
102 to 104 ml Abundant cyanophages in seawater could be a significant factor in
determining the dynamics of Synechococcus populations. In both coastal and open oceans, the distribution of cyanophages is in
concordance with the distribution of total Synechococcus cells, and the abundance of cyanophages varies spatially and temporally (11, 13). However, little is known about the effect of
salinity on the distribution of cyanophages, particularly in river
estuarine areas.
Cyanophages that infect marine Synechococcus spp. in marine
environments are diverse in terms of their morphotypes and genotypes. Various tailed cyanophages have been observed in coastal and open ocean
waters (10, 13, 14). Different cyanophages propagated in
marine Synechococcus sp. strain WH7803 could be
differentiated based on their restriction fragment length polymorphisms
(14). It was found previously that in the Atlantic Ocean
cyanophage diversity was high and changed with depth (15).
This study was initiated to examine the abundance and distribution of
cyanophages that infect marine Synechococcus spp. in Georgia
estuarine rivers. We also determined the morphology, host specificity,
and genetic diversity of cyanophages isolated from estuarine systems.
Water samples.
Water samples were collected from three Georgia
coastal rivers (Savannah, Altamaha, and Satilla), by researchers on
board the R/V Bluefin between 11 and 17 July 1998 (Fig.
1). The samples were kept at 4°C and
were used to determine the titer of cyanophages after the cruise
(within 24 h). The virus communities in two coastal samples
collected from the pier at the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography were
concentrated by the ultrafiltration method described by Chen et al.
(2).
0099-2240/01/$04.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/AEM.67.7.3285-3290.2001
Copyright © 2001, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Distribution, Isolation, Host Specificity, and
Diversity of Cyanophages Infecting Marine Synechococcus spp.
in River Estuaries

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1 in nearshore and
offshore waters (11, 13) and sometimes can be more than
105 phage particles ml
1 (11). It
was found previously that 1 to 3% of marine Synechococcus spp. from a variety of locations contained mature phages
(8), and cyanophages may be responsible for ca. 5 to 14%
of cyanobacterial mortality on a daily basis (11).

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FIG. 1.
Sampling sites in the Georgia estuaries. For the
Savannah River, sites 1 to 6 were designated stations SV1 to SV6,
respectively; for the Altamaha River, sites 1 to 7 were designated
stations AL1 to AL7, respectively; and for the Satilla River, sites 1 to 6 were designated stations SL1 to SL6, respectively.
Synechococcus strains.
Eleven
Synechococcus strains, including four
phycoerythrin-containing (PE) strains (WH7803, WH7805, WH8108,
and WH8103) and seven phycocyanin-containing (PC) strains
(WH8101, WH8007, WH5701, CCMP1628, CCMP1629, CCMP1630, and
CCMP1632) were used in this study. The strains whose designations begin
with WH came from the Woods Hole Collection of Cyanobacteria (Biology
Department, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution), and the strains
whose designations begin with CCMP were from the Culture Collection at
The Bigelow Laboratory. Cultures were grown at 26°C with constant
light (20 to 30 microeinsteins m
2 s
1) in an
illuminated room by using SN growth medium (12).
Isolation of cyanophages. Clonal cyanophages were isolated by the liquid serial dilution method (10). Twenty-microliter portions of water samples were filtered through 0.45-µm-pore-size filters and transferred into exponentially growing cultures of the host suspended in SN growth medium in 96-well tissue culture plates. The controls received no virus. The plates were incubated under the conditions described above and were monitored daily for 7 to 10 days. Lysed cultures were examined by transmission electron microscopy to verify the presence of phages and then purified by another serial dilution procedure.
Estimation of cyanophage and cyanobacterium concentrations. Cyanophages were quantified by using the most-probable-number technique described by Suttle and Chan (10). The dilutions were monitored for cell lysis daily for 2 weeks. The number of wells in which lysis occurred was determined, and the concentration of infective units and the error associated with the estimates were determined by the method described by MacDonell et al. (7). The number of cyanobacteria in a water sample was determined by the protocol described by Waterbury et al. (12).
Host range. Purified cyanophage isolates were tested with other strains of marine Synechococcus spp. to determine cross-infectivity. A lysate was filtered with a 0.2-µm-pore-size sterile Acrodisc filter (Gelman Sciences, Ann Arbor, Mich.), and 20 µl of filtrate was added to four 2-ml exponentially growing cultures. The control received no phage. Each host-cyanophage preparation was incubated in the conditions described above and was monitored daily for host cell lysis.
Phage morphology. Forty microliters of a high-titer phage stock preparation was spotted onto a Formvar-carbon-coated 400-mesh copper grid and allowed to adsorb to the grid for 30 min. The grid was then promptly washed with a few drops of deionized water and stained with 1 drop of a 2% (wt/vol) aqueous uranyl acetate solution for 30 s. The excess stain was removed immediately with filter paper. The cyanophages on the grid were examined with a JEOL-100CX transmission electron microscope at The Microscopic Center, University of Georgia.
Cyanophage DNA extraction. In order to obtain enough DNA from a specific cyanophage, 500 ml of clonal lysate was treated with chloroform, DNase I, and Rnase by using the protocol described by Wilson et al. (14). Viral particles were centrifuged at 140,000 × g and 4°C for 6 h by using a Surespin ultracentrifuge (Discovery 100S; Sorvall, Newtown, Conn.) with a 630/36 swing bucket rotor (Sorvall). The pellet was resuspended with 0.5 ml of 1× TE buffer (pH 8.0). Viral DNA was extracted by using a Phase Lock GEL kit (5 Prime-3 Prime Inc., Boulder, Colo.) as recommended by the manufacturer. The DNA concentration was measured with DU640 spectrophotometer (Beckman Instruments Inc., Fullerton, Calif.).
Restriction enzyme digestion. Restriction endonucleases AccI, BamHI, EcoRI, EcoRV, and HindIII (Promega, Madison, Wis.) and restriction endonucleases SmaI, KpnI, and XbaI (Boehringer Mannheim, Indianapolis, Ind.) were used to digest cyanophage DNA according to the protocols described by the manufacturers. Digested DNA was separated by agarose gel electrophoresis (1.5% agarose) and stained with ethidium bromide. Each gel image was captured and analyzed by using a gel documentation system (Alpha Innotech Corp., San Leandro, Calif.).
The concentration of cyanophages infecting WH7803 ranged from 65 to 44,046 phage particles ml
1, and the mean in
the three rivers was 8,296 phage particles ml
1. The
concentrations of cyanophages infecting WH8101 (PC strain) were
determined only for the Savannah River, and the values ranged from
undetectable to 147 phage particles ml
1. The
cyanophage titers for the coastal sites of rivers were similar to
the titers observed in Woods Hole Harbor (13), the Gulf of Mexico (10), and Bermuda samples (14). The
average titer of cyanophages infecting WH7803 was 324 times higher than
the average titer of cyanophages infecting WH8101, suggesting that the
level of cyanophages was host dependent. The concentration of
cyanophages which infected marine Synechococcus strains
increased with increasing salinity, and the highest titers all occurred
near the mouths of rivers, where the salinity was highest (Fig.
2). The highest Synechococcus
concentrations also occurred in the most saline water in the Altamaha
and Satilla rivers (Fig. 2).
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, while PC strains WH8101 and WH8007 grew well at salinities
ranging from 18 to 30
. It appeared that the PE strains have less
salinity tolerance than the PC strains. The concentration of
WH7803-like Synechococcus strains could decrease rapidly
with decreasing salinity in the rivers, although the total Synechococcus counts did not change dramatically. Because
the most-probable-number method is a culture-dependent method, a lower concentration of cyanophages infecting WH7803 in the upper parts of
rivers does not necessarily mean that the concentration of all
cyanophages is lower.
Earlier studies showed that the distribution of cyanophages infecting
WH7803 was similar to the distribution of all Synechococcus strains in marine environments (11, 13). Cyanophages
infecting marine Synechococcus may require a certain range
of salinity for replication, like other marine bacteriophages. Zachary
(17) found that in one-step growth studies salinity was
required for growth of the bacteriophages of the marine bacterium
Beneckea natriegens and suggested that in an area where the
salinity is too low for B. natrigens to survive, the phage
cannot replicate and decays through a natural inactivation process. It
has been reported that the concentration of marine members of the alpha subclass of the class Proteobacteria declines with
decreasing salinity in the Savannah and Satilla estuaries
(4). It should be noted that the distribution pattern for
cyanophages which we report here was limited to the pattern for the
cyanophages infecting Synechococcus strains WH7803 and WH8101.
Seventy-two clonal cyanophages which infect marine
Synechococcus spp. were isolated from Georgia estuarine
water samples. Various morphotypes of cyanophages were found among
these isolates (Fig. 3). About 80% of
the cyanophage isolates were cyanomyoviruses. The head sizes of the
cyanophages ranged from 42 to 92 nm for the cyanomyoviruses. We
noticed that the cyanophages isolated from high-salinity water (coastal
water) exhibited more diverse morphotypes than those isolated from
low-salinity water (upstream river).
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
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This work was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (grants OCE-9730602 and OCE-0049098), the Department of Energy (grant DE-FG02-97ER62451), and the NOAA/Sea Grants National Biotechnology Programs (grant NA66RG0282).
We thank Curtis Suttle of the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and John Waterbury of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution for providing several cyanophage isolates.
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FOOTNOTES |
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* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Center of Marine Biotechnology, University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute, 701 East Pratt Street, Suite 236, Baltimore, MD 21202. Phone: (410) 234-8866. Fax: (410) 234-8896. E-mail: chenf{at}umbi.umb.edu.
Contribution 549 from the Center of Marine Biotechnology,
University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute.
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