Genomic and Biological Characterization of the Vibrio Alginolyticus-infecting "Podoviridae" Bacteriophage, VB_ValP_IME271

As an opportunist pathogen, Vibrio alginolyticus (V. alginolyticus), causes disease in marine animals. Bacterial contamination of seafood is not uncommon, and phage therapy is considered a safe way to decontaminate such foods to control the emergence of vibriosis. Here, we report on the isolation of a new, virulent phage called vB_ValP_IME271 (designated phage IME271), which infects V. alginolyticus and was isolated from seawater. Phage IME271 displayed good pH (7-9) and temperature tolerance (< 40 °C) and had a broad host range against Vibrio isolates, including 7 strains of V. alginolyticus and11 strains of V. parahaemolyticus. The IME271 genome was sequenced and annotated, the results of which showed that this phage is a Podoviridae family member with a genome length of 50,345 base pairs. The complete genome is double-stranded DNA with a G+C content of 41.4%. Encoded within the genome are 67 putative proteins, of which only 22 coding sequences have known functions, and no tRNAs are present. The BLASTn results for IME271 showed that it only shares similarity with the Vibrio phage VPp1 (sequence identity score of 96% over 87% of the genome) whose host is V. parahaemolyticus. Comparative analysis showed that IME271 and VPp1 share a similar genomic structure, and the structural proteins are highly similar (> 95% similarity score). In summary, our work identified a new lytic Podoviridae bacteriophage, which is infective to V. alginolyticus and V. parahaemolyticus. This bacteriophage could potentially be used to control V. alginolyticus and V. parahaemolyticus infections in marine animals.