Othman B A, Askora Ahmed, Abo-Senna Amel S M
Agricultural Microbiology Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt.
Folia Microbiol (Praha). 2015 Jul;60(4):289-95. doi: 10.1007/s12223-015-0375-1. Epub 2015 Jan 27.
In this study, we isolated and characterized a Siphoviridae phage isolated from the vicinity of a religious structure (Kaaba) in Makkah, Saudi Arabia. The phage was designated as φBM and characterized using transmission electron microscopy, restriction digestion of its DNA, and host range. Electron micrograph indicated that φBM phage has an icosahedral head with diameter of about 65 ± 5 nm and long, non-contractile tail with length of about 300 ± 10 nm and width of about 17 ± 2 nm, respectively. On the basis of the φBM phage morphology, we thus propose that φBM represents a member of Siphoviridae phages. The φBM phage was shown to be able to infect Bacillus megaterium and two other Bacillus species and has no effect on other tested bacteria. φBM was stable over the pH range of 5-9, chloroform resistant and stable at 4 °C. A one-step growth experiment showed a latent period of about 40 min and a burst size of approximately 65 per infected cell. The purified bacteriophage appeared to consist of ten proteins. The genome size was estimated to be ∼38 kb. To our knowledge, this is the first report on the isolation of a bacteriophage from Kaaba a heavily trafficked holy site in Saudi Arabia.
在本研究中，我们从沙特阿拉伯麦加一座宗教建筑（克尔白）附近分离并鉴定了一种肌尾噬菌体科噬菌体。该噬菌体被命名为φBM，并通过透射电子显微镜、其DNA的限制性消化以及宿主范围进行了鉴定。电子显微镜照片显示，φBM噬菌体有一个直径约为65±5nm的二十面体头部，以及一条长约300±10nm、宽约17±2nm的长非收缩性尾部。基于φBM噬菌体的形态，我们因此提出φBM代表肌尾噬菌体科噬菌体的一个成员。φBM噬菌体被证明能够感染巨大芽孢杆菌和另外两种芽孢杆菌属细菌，而对其他测试细菌没有影响。φBM在pH值5至9的范围内稳定，耐氯仿，在4°C下稳定。一步生长实验显示潜伏期约为40分钟，每个感染细胞的爆发量约为65。纯化的噬菌体似乎由十种蛋白质组成。基因组大小估计约为38kb。据我们所知，这是关于从沙特阿拉伯一个人流量大的圣地克尔白分离出噬菌体的首次报道。
