Systematic classification of phage receptor-binding proteins predicts surface glycopolymer structure in Staphylococcus pathogens

Wall teichoic acids (WTAs) are major surface polymers of staphylococcal pathogens and commensals, whose variable structure governs interaction with host receptors, immunoglobulins, and bacteriophages. The ribitol phosphate (RboP) WTA type contributes to virulence, for instance in Staphylococcus aureus , but we lack comprehensive knowledge of WTA types and cognate phages.

We developed a computational pipeline to identify the receptor-binding proteins (RBPs) in 335 Staphylococcus phage genomes, yielding multiple distinct RBP clusters. Notably, many phages had two separate RBPs with in part different WTA preferences. RBP representatives differed in specificity for RboP WTA glycosylation types, recapitulating the specificity of the corresponding phage. Based on these results, we created a publicly available bioinformatic tool to predict phage host specificity based on RBP similarity.

The RboP WTA specific Φ13-RBP also revealed that the presence of RboP WTA on non-aureus staphylococci is more common than previously thought. Our approach facilitates the characterization of opportunistic Staphylococcus pathogens according to WTA types, which has major implications for phage-mediated interspecies horizontal gene transfer and future phage therapies.