Characterization of a thermophilic bacteriophage of Geobacillus kaustophilus

Abstract

GBK2 is a bacteriophage, isolated from a backyard compost pile, that infects the thermophile Geobacillus kaustophilus. GBK2 has a circularly permuted genome of 39,078 bp with a G+C content of 43 %. Annotation of the genome reveals 62 putative open reading frames (ORFs), 25 of which (40.3 %) show homology to known proteins and 37 of which (59.7 %) are proteins with unknown functions. Twelve of the identified ORFs had the greatest homology to genes from the phage SPP1, a phage that infects the mesophile Bacillus subtilis. The overall genomic arrangement of GBK2 is similar to that of SPP1, with the majority of GBK2 SPP1-like genes coding for proteins involved in DNA replication and metabolism.