title: The complete sequence of marine bacteriophage VpV262 infecting vibrio parahaemolyticus indicates that an ancestral component of a T7 viral supergroup is widespread in the marine environment.
abstract: The 46,012-bp sequence of the marine bacteriophage VpV262 infecting the bacterium Vibrio parahaemolyticus is reported. The VpV262 sequence reveals that it is a distant relative of marine Roseophage SIO1, and an even more distant relative of coliphage T7. VpV262 and SIO1 appear to represent a widespread marine phage group that lacks an RNA polymerase gene and is ancestral to the T7-like phages. We propose that this group together with the T7-like phages be designated as the T7 supergroup. The ancestral head structure gene module for the T7 supergroup was reconstructed by using sensitive biased Psi-blast searches supplemented by statistical support derived from gene order. In the early and replicative segments, these phages have participated in extensive interchange with the viral gene pool. VpV262 carries a different replicative module than SIO1 and the T7-like phages.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry, MSC 7760, The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, 7703 Floyd Curl Dr., San Antonio, TX 78229-3900, USA. hardies@uthscsa.edu
authors.forename: Stephen C
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Hardies
authors.forename: André M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Comeau
authors.forename: Philip
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Serwer
authors.forename: Curtis A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Suttle
mesh_terms: D017123:Bacteriophage T7 / Q000145:classification*; D001435:Bacteriophages / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics*; D003001:Cloning, Molecular; D012321:DNA-Directed RNA Polymerases / Q000235:genetics; D023061:Gene Order; D005814:Genes, Viral / Q000235:genetics; D016679:Genome, Viral; D008386:Marine Biology; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D016366:Open Reading Frames; D017421:Sequence Analysis; D014736:Vibrio parahaemolyticus / Q000821:virology*; D014871:Water Microbiology
chemical_list: D012321:DNA-Directed RNA Polymerases