title: Comparative genomics of 9 novelPaenibacillus larvaebacteriophages.
abstract: American Foulbrood Disease, caused by the bacteriumPaenibacillus larvae, is one of the most destructive diseases of the honeybee,Apis mellifera. Our group recently published the sequences of 9 new phages with the ability to infect and lyseP. larvae. Here, we characterize the genomes of theseP. larvaephages, compare them to each other and to other sequencedP. larvaephages, and putatively identify protein function. The phage genomes are 38-45 kb in size and contain 68-86 genes, most of which appear to be unique toP. larvaephages. We classifyP. larvaephages into 2 main clusters and one singleton based on nucleotide sequence identity. Three of the new phages show sequence similarity to other sequencedP. larvaephages, while the remaining 6 do not. We identified functions for roughly half of theP. larvaephage proteins, including structural, assembly, host lysis, DNA replication/metabolism, regulatory, and host-related functions. Structural and assembly proteins are highly conserved among our phages and are located at the start of the genome. DNA replication/metabolism, regulatory, and host-related proteins are located in the middle and end of the genome, and are not conserved, with many of these genes found in some of our phages but not others. All nine phages code for a conserved N-acetylmuramoyl-L-alanine amidase. Comparative analysis showed the phages use the "cohesive ends with 3' overhang" DNA packaging strategy. This work is the first in-depth study ofP. larvaephage genomics, and serves as a marker for future work in this area.
authors.affiliation: School of Life Sciences, University of Nevada Las Vegas , Las Vegas, NV, USA.
authors.forename: Casey
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Stamereilers
authors.affiliation: Section of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology and Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology, University of Texas at Austin , Austin, TX, USA.
authors.forename: Lucy
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: LeBlanc
authors.affiliation: School of Life Sciences, University of Nevada Las Vegas , Las Vegas, NV, USA.
authors.forename: Diane
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Yost
authors.affiliation: School of Life Sciences, University of Nevada Las Vegas , Las Vegas, NV, USA.
authors.forename: Penny S
authors.initials: PS
authors.lastname: Amy
authors.affiliation: School of Life Sciences, University of Nevada Las Vegas , Las Vegas, NV, USA.
authors.forename: Philippos K
authors.initials: PK
authors.lastname: Tsourkas
keywords: American Foulbrood; DNA packaging strategy; N-acetylmuramoyl-L-alanine amidase; Paenibacillus larvae; Phamerator; bacteriophage; comparative genomics; comparative proteomics; endolysin; large terminase; siphoviridae