SacII produced distinct fragments of approximately 30 kb, 25 kb and 8 kb (data not shown). Computational analysis of the SacII restriction sites in the sequenced genome (see below) revealed slightly different fragment sizes of 28,348 kb and 21,719 kb, respectively as well as two fragments with a size of 8,49 kb and 7.718 kb, which we observed as one 8 kb fragment. Electron microscopy (Figure 1) shows an icosahedral head with a length of 80 nm and a width of 75 nm. The Daporinad chemical structure contractile tail, which consists of a neck, a contractile sheath and a central tube has a length of approximately 130 nm. Due to these morphological results and
in accordance with the presence of dsDNA, the phage JG024 is grouped to the family Myoviridae. This family is a member of the order Caudovirales which contains exclusively tailed phages also from the families Siphoviridae and Podoviridae. Figure Selleck ALK inhibitor 1 Morphology of JG024. Electron microscopic image of negatively stained JG024 phages, which exhibit a contractile tail with a length of 130 nm. The icosahedral head of JG024 has a length of 80 nm and a width of 75 nm. Receptor of phage JG024 We used different P. aeruginosa mutants to identify the receptor of phage JG024
as outlined by others [23]. Aflagella mutant (ΔfliM), a pili mutant GW-572016 (ΔpilA) and an LPS mutant (ΔalgC) were infected with the phage JG024. After incubation, lysis was investigated on bacterial lawns (data not shown). JG024 lyses the pili- and the flagella mutant but not the P. aeruginosa ΔalgC mutant. The algC gene
encodes an enzyme with phosphoglucomutase and phosphomannomutase activity. A P. aeruginosa ΔalgC mutant produces a truncated LPS core and lacks common antigen suggesting that these structures might constitute the host receptor for JG024 attachment [24, 25]. Growth characteristics To investigate growth parameters like the latent phase and the burst size of the phage JG024, we performed single step Clomifene growth curves as described in Methods, Figure 2. Phage JG024 has an estimated latent phase of 50 min. The burst size, which describes the mean number of phages liberated per bacterial cell was determined as 180 phages per infected cell. Figure 2 Growth characteristics of JG024. One step growth curve of phage JG024. A representative growth experiment of three independent experiments is shown. The latent phase of JG024 takes approximately 50 min and the phage is able to produce about 180 phage progeny per infected cell. JG024 is a PB1-like phage Phage JG024 DNA was sequenced and assembled at McGill University as described in Methods. The genome size of phage JG024 is 66,275 bp and has a GC content of 55.62%. Genome comparison using the blastx tool revealed that phage JG024 is highly related to the widespread and conserved PB1-like viruses [15, 26].