Abstract
Malaysia is one of the countries that are loaded with mega biodiversity which includes microbial communities. Phages constitute the major component in the microbial communities and yet the numbers of discovered phages are just a minute fraction of its population in the biosphere. Taking into account of a huge numbers of waiting to be discovered phages, a new bacteriophage designated as Escherichia phage YD-2008.s was successfully isolated using Escherichia coli ATCC 11303 as the host. Phage YD-2008.s poses icosahedral head measured at 57nm in diameter with a long non-contractile flexible tail measured at 107nm; proving the phage as one of the members of Siphoviridae family under the order of Caudovirales. Genomic sequence analyses revealed phage YD-2008.s genome as linear dsDNA of 44,613 base pairs with 54.6% G+C content. Sixty-two open reading frames (ORFs) were identified on phage YD-2008.s full genome, using bioinformatics annotation software; Rapid Annotation using Subsystem Technology (RAST). Among the ORFs, twenty-eight of them code for functional proteins. Thirty two are classified as hypothetical proteins and there are two unidentified proteins. Even though majority of the coded putative proteins have high amino acids similarities to phages from the genus Hk578likevirus of the Siphoviridae family, yet phage YD-2008.s stands with its’ own distinctiveness. Therefore, this is another new finding to Siphoviridae family as well as to the growing list of viruses in International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) database.
Highlights
Escherichia coli is one of the well studied gram negative bacteria
Phage YD-2008.s was isolated from goat faeces in Penang, Malaysia, using Escherichia coli ATCC 11303 as the host
The transmission electron micrograph (TEM) pictures show that phage YD-2008.s has an icosahedral capsid measured 57nm in diameter with a flexible long noncontractile tail measured at 107nm in length (Fig. 1)
Summary
Escherichia coli is one of the well studied gram negative bacteria. E. coli strains are group of bacteria that are commonly found which are important to microbiology, as well as, biotechnology field (Abeles & Pride 2014). Due to its host specificity, phages are excellent agents to control bacteria populations, as well as, maintaining bacteria diversities (Chang & Kim 2011). Phages are ubiquitous and could be found wherever hosts reside This would make them as diversed as their hosts (Ackermann 1998; Valera et al 2014; Yu et al 2016). Over 96% of discovered phages are tail phages, under the order Caudovirale and formed the biggest group in prokaryote viruses (Ackermann 1998; Ackermann & Prangishvili 2012; Yu et al 2016). Tail phages are divided into three major families: Siphoviridae (57.3%), Myvoviridae (24.8%) and Podoviridae (14.2%) as reported in Ackermann and Prangishvili (2012)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
