Telomere bacteriophages are widespread and equip their bacterial hosts with potent interbacterial weapons.

Abstract

Bacteriophages (phages) are viruses that can kill bacteria, thereby editing and shaping microbial communities. The telomere phages are a curious form using telomere-like structures to replicate their genomes as linear extrachromosomal elements. Here, we find that telomere phages are widely distributed in bacteria, being highly prevalent in <i>Klebsiella</i> species. We establish a model system to investigate telomere phage biology by isolating the virions of telomere phages and infecting naïve strains to create isogenic lines with and without a phage. We find that only a small set of telomere phage proteins is expressed in phage-host cells, including a toxin-the telocin-that kills other <i>Klebsiella</i> strains. We identify and validate a set of telocins in the genomes of other prevalent <i>Klebsiella</i> telomere phages. Thus, telomere phages are widespread elements encoding diverse antibacterial weapons and we discuss the prospect of using telocins for precision editing of microbial populations.