First Description of a Temperate Bacteriophage (vB_KIRK) of Strain 3523.

Here we present the characterization of a bacteriophage (vB__KIRK) including the morphology, the genome sequence and the induction of the prophage. The prophage sequence (FhaGI-1) has previously been identified in strain 3523. UV radiation induced the prophage to assemble phage particles consisting of an icosahedral head (~52 nm in diameter), a tail of up to 97 nm in length and a mean width of 9 nm. The double stranded genome of vB__KIRK contains 51 open reading frames and is 34,259 bp in length. The genotypic and phylogenetic analysis indicated that this phage seems to belong to the family of bacteriophages. Under the conditions tested here, host cell ( 3523) lysis activity of KIRK was very low, and the phage particles seem to be defective for infecting new bacterial cells. Nevertheless, recombinant KIRK DNA was able to integrate site-specifically into the genome of different species after DNA transformation.