Characterization of novel Actinobacteriophage Giantsbane reveals potential genomic recombination hotspot and unexpected intra-cluster similarities
ABSTRACTBacteriophages that infect Arthrobacter, a genus of bacteria which play key ecological roles in soil, warrant further study. A novel Actinobacteriophage, Giantsbane, was isolated on Arthrobacter globiformis and purified. Particle stability was tested at various temperatures and salinity concentrations by observing titer differences; unpaired Student’s t-tests revealed these differences to be insignificant. Transmission electron microscopy and Illumina whole-genome sequencing revealed that Giantsbane’s morphology and genome length, respectively, were characteristic of Siphoviridae phages. 94 putative open reading frames were determined using Glimmer, GeneMark, and manual review; none were associated with lysogeny. Giantsbane was placed into phage cluster AU, and SplitsTree and batch ANI analyses revealed similarities with other AU phages. The annotated genome was further analyzed using Phamerator and MEME-Suite, which identified repeated motifs present in several other phages. These findings help further our understanding of the physiological and genomic aspects of phage biology.