Abstract
Background: Biocontrol of bacterial pathogens by bacteriophages (phages) represents a promising strategy. Vibrio alginolyticus, a gram-negative bacterium, is a notorious pathogen responsible for the loss of economically important farmed marine animals. To date, few V. alginolyticus phages have been successfully isolated, and only three complete genome sequences of them have been released. The limited available phage resources and poor genomic data hamper research on V. alginolyticus phages and their applications for the biocontrol of V. alginolyticus. Results: We isolated a phage, Vp670, against the V. alginolyticus strain E06333 and obtained its full genomic sequence. It contains 43,121 nucleotides with a GC content of 43.4%, and codes for 49 predicted open reading frames. Observation by electron microscope combined with phylogenetic analysis of DNA polymerase indicates that Vp670 belongs to the subfamily Autographivirinae in the family Podoviridae. orf3 (designated holA) and orf8 (designated cwlQ) are predicted to encode a holin (HolA) and an endolysin (CwlQ), respectively. Expression of holA alone or coexpression of holA and cwlQ from within arrested the growth of Escherichia coli and V. alginolyticus while the expression of cwlQ alone had no effect on the growth of them. Further observation by transmission electron microscopy revealed that the expression of holA vanished the outer membrane and caused the release of cellular contents of V. alginolyticus and the coexpression of holA and cwlQ directly burst the cells and caused a more drastic release of cellular contents. Expression of cwlQ alone in V. alginolyticus did not cause cytomorphological changes. Conclusions: Phage Vp670 is a V. alginolyticus phage belonging to the family of Podoviridae. The genome of Vp670 contains a two-component lysis module, which is comprised of holA and cwlQ. holA is predicted to encode for the holin protein, HolA, and cwlQ is predicted to encode for the endolysin protein, CwlQ. Both holA and cwlQ likely play important roles during the release of phage progeny.