Properties of Streptomyces phage SLE111.

Phage SLE111 infecting Streptomyces levoris 1331 was morphological different from most actinophages described and yielded very high titres (10(11) p.f.u/ml) after lytic growth. Typical morphological changes of infected hyphae were observed by phase contrast and electron microscopy of ultrathin sections. The double-stranded, linear DNA (44.2 +/- 1.3 kb) was characterized, according to electron microscopic analysis, by absence of cohesive ends, of terminal redundance, and circular permutation. A stem-loop structure containing inverted repeats of about 200 bp was identified by electron microscopy in two alternative positions in the SLE111 genome.