Abstract
This paper presents the first in-depth research on the biological and genomic properties of lytic rhizobiophage AP-J-162 isolated from the soils of the mountainous region of Dagestan (North Caucasus), which belongs to the centers of origin of cultivated plants, according to Vavilov N.I. The rhizobiophage host strains are nitrogen-fixing bacteria of the genus Sinorhizobium spp., symbionts of leguminous forage grasses. The phage particles have a myovirus virion structure. The genome of rhizobiophage AP-J-162 is double-stranded DNA of 471.5 kb in length; 711 ORFs are annotated and 41 types of tRNAs are detected. The closest phylogenetic relative of phage AP-J-162 is Agrobacterium phage Atu-ph07, but no rhizobiophages are known. The replicative machinery, capsid, and baseplate proteins of phage AP-J-162 are structurally similar to those of Escherichia phage T4, but there is no similarity between their tail protein subunits. Amino acid sequence analysis shows that 339 of the ORFs encode hypothetical or functionally relevant products, while the remaining 304 ORFs are unique. Additionally, 153 ORFs are similar to those of Atu_ph07, with one-third of the ORFs encoding different enzymes. The biological properties and genomic characteristics of phage AP-J-162 distinguish it as a unique model for exploring phage-microbe interactions with nitrogen-fixing symbiotic microorganisms.