title: Isolation and characterization of wetland VSW-3, a novel lytic cold-active bacteriophage of Pseudomonas fluorescens.
abstract: Wetlands are often called the "kidneys of the Earth" and contribute substantially to environmental improvement. Pseudomonas fluorescens is a major contaminant of milk products and causes the spoilage of refrigerated foods and fresh poultry. In this study, we isolated and characterized a lytic cold-active bacteriophage named VSW-3 together with P. fluorescens SW-3 cells from the Napahai wetland in China. Electron microscopy showed that VSW-3 had an icosahedral head (56 nm) and a tapering tail (20 nm × 12 nm) and a genome size of approximate 40 kb. On the basis of the top-scoring hits in the BLASTP analysis, VSW-3 showed a high degree of module similarity to the Pseudomonas phages Andromeda and Bf7. The latent and burst periods were 45 and 20 min, respectively, with an average burst size of 90 phage particles per infected cell. The pH and thermal stability of VSW-3 were also explored. The optimal pH was found to be 7.0 and the activity decreased rapidly when the temperature exceeded 60 °C. VSW-3 is a cold-active bacteriophage, hence, it is important to research its ability to prevent product contamination caused by P. fluorescens and to characterize its relationship with its host P. fluorescens in the future.
authors.affiliation: a Faculty of Life Science and Technology, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming 650500, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Kunhao
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Qin
authors.affiliation: a Faculty of Life Science and Technology, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming 650500, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Xiuling
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Ji
authors.affiliation: a Faculty of Life Science and Technology, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming 650500, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Chunjing
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: a Faculty of Life Science and Technology, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming 650500, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Yafang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ding
authors.affiliation: b Department of Biology, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, 1201 West University Drive, Edinburg, TX 78539, USA.
authors.forename: Anxiu
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kuang
authors.affiliation: a Faculty of Life Science and Technology, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming 650500, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Shengting
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: a Faculty of Life Science and Technology, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming 650500, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Qi
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: a Faculty of Life Science and Technology, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming 650500, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Lianbing
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: a Faculty of Life Science and Technology, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming 650500, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Yunlin
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wei
mesh_terms: D003080:Cold Temperature; D017902:Podoviridae / Q000254:growth & development / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D017105:Pseudomonas Phages / Q000254:growth & development / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D011551:Pseudomonas fluorescens / Q000821:virology*; D053833:Wetlands
keywords: Podoviridae; Pseudomonas fluorescens; caractérisation; characterization; cold-active phage; lytic; lytique; phage actif à basse température