Molecular Characterization of Ahp2, a Lytic Bacteriophage of Aeromonas hydrophila

• Published in: Viruses 2021-03, Vol.13 (3), p.477
• Main Authors: Wang, Jian-Bin, Yu, Mei-Shiuan, Tseng, Tsai-Tien, Lin, Ling-Chun
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adsorption; Aeromonas; Aeromonas hydrophila; Aeromonas phage; Ahp2; Amino acid sequence; Bacteria; Burst size; Capsid protein; Cell size; Deoxyribonucleic acid; DNA; Gel electrophoresis; Genomes; Host range; Infections; Latent period; Microscopy; Morphology; myophage; Nucleotide sequence; Opportunist infection; Pathogens; Peptides; Phages; Polyacrylamide; Proteins; Sepsis; Sequence analysis
• ISSN: 1999-4915; 1999-4915
• DOI: 10.3390/v13030477

is an opportunistic pathogen that infects fish, amphibians, mammals, and humans. This study isolated a myophage, vB_AhyM_Ahp2 (Ahp2), that lytically infects . We observed that 96% of the Ahp2 particles adsorbed to within 18 min. Ahp2 also showed a latent period of 15 min with a burst size of 142 PFU/cell. This phage has a linear double-stranded DNA genome of 47,331 bp with a GC content of 57%. At least 20 Ahp2 proteins were detected by SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis; among them, a 40-kDa protein was predicted as the major capsid protein. Sequence analysis showed that Ahp2 has a genome organization closely related to a group of phages (13AhydR10RR, 14AhydR10RR, 85AhydR10RR, phage 3, 32 Asp37, 59.1), which infect and . The tail module encompassing ORF27-29 in the Ahp2 genome was present in all phages analyzed in this study and likely determines the host range of the virus. This study found that Ahp2 completely lyses AH300206 in 3.5 h at a MOI of 0.0001 and does not lysogenize its host. Altogether, these findings show that Ahp2 is a lytic phage and could be a candidate for therapeutic phage cocktails.