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The Caulobacter crescentus Transducing Phage Cr30 is a Unique Member of the T4-Like Family of Myophages

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Abstract

Bacteriophage Cr30 has proven useful for the transduction of Caulobacter crescentus. Nucleotide sequencing of Cr30 DNA revealed that the Cr30 genome consists of 155,997 bp of DNA that codes for 287 proteins and five tRNAs. In contrast to the 67 % GC content of the host genome, the GC content of the Cr30 genome is only 38 %. This lower GC content causes both the codon usage pattern and the amino acid composition of the Cr30 proteins to be quite different from those of the host bacteria. As a consequence, the Cr30 mRNAs probably are translated at a rate that is slower than the normal rate for host mRNAs. A phylogenetic comparison of the genome indicates that Cr30 is a member of the T4-like family that is most closely related to a new group of T-like phages exemplified by фM12.

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Acknowledgments

This work was funded in part by National Science Foundation Grant EF-0826792 and NIH Grants R25GM066526 and R25GM076277 to BE.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.

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Author notes

  1. Whitney Gibbs

    Present address: South Carolina College of Pharmacy, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological Sciences, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, 29208, USA

    Bert Ely, Whitney Gibbs, Simon Diez & Kurt Ash

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  1. Bert Ely
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Correspondence to Bert Ely.

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Ely, B., Gibbs, W., Diez, S. et al. The Caulobacter crescentus Transducing Phage Cr30 is a Unique Member of the T4-Like Family of Myophages. Curr Microbiol 70, 854–858 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00284-015-0799-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00284-015-0799-5

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