Isolation and characterization of a N4-like lytic bacteriophage infecting Vibrio splendidus, a pathogen of fish and bivalves.

Autor: Pantelis Katharios, Panos G Kalatzis, Constantina Kokkari, Elena Sarropoulou, Mathias Middelboe
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2017
Předmět:
Zdroj: PLoS ONE, Vol 12, Iss 12, p e0190083 (2017)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 1932-6203
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0190083
Popis: A novel virulent bacteriophage, vB_VspP_pVa5, infecting a strain of Vibrio splendidus was isolated from a sea-cage aquaculture farm in Greece, and characterized using microbiological methods and genomic analysis. Bacteriophage vB_VspP_pVa5 is a N4-like podovirus with an icosahedral head measuring 85 nm in length and a short non-contractile tail. The phage had a narrow host range infecting only the bacterial host, a latent period of 30 min and a burst size of 24 virions per infected bacterium. Its genome size was 78,145 bp and genomic analysis identified 107 densely-packed genes, 40 of which could be annotated. In addition to the very large virion encapsulated DNA-dependent RNA polymerase which is the signature of the N4-like genus, an interesting feature of the novel phage is the presence of a self-splicing group I intron in the thymidylate synthase gene. A tRNAStop interrupted by a ~2.5kb open reading frame-containing area was also identified. The absence of genes related to lysogeny along with the high efficacy observed during in vitro cell lysis trials, indicate that the vB_VspP_pVa5 is a potential candidate component in a bacteriophage cocktail suitable for the biological control of V. splendidus in aquaculture.
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