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Journal of Bacteriology, March 2008, p. 2172-2182, Vol. 190, No. 6
0021-9193/08/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JB.01657-07
Copyright © 2008, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Genomic Characterization of Mycobacteriophage Giles: Evidence for Phage Acquisition of Host DNA by Illegitimate Recombination{triangledown} ,{dagger}

Peter Morris,{ddagger} Laura J. Marinelli, Deborah Jacobs-Sera, Roger W. Hendrix, and Graham F. Hatfull*

Department of Biological Sciences and Pittsburgh Bacteriophage Institute, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15241

Received 12 October 2007/ Accepted 22 December 2007

A characteristic feature of bacteriophage genomes is that they are architecturally mosaic, with each individual genome representing a unique assemblage of individual exchangeable modules. Plausible mechanisms for generating mosaicism include homologous recombination at shared boundary sequences of module junctions, illegitimate recombination in a non-sequence-directed process, and site-specific recombination. Analysis of the novel mycobacteriophage Giles genome not only extends our current perspective on bacteriophage genetic diversity, with more than 60% of the genes unrelated to other mycobacteriophages, but offers novel insights into how mosaic genomes are created. In one example, the integration/excision cassette is atypically situated within the structural gene operon and could have moved there either by illegitimate recombination or more plausibly via integrase-mediated site-specific recombination. In a second example, a DNA segment has been recently acquired from the host bacterial chromosome by illegitimate recombination, providing further evidence that phage genomic mosaicism is generated by nontargeted recombination processes.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Biological Sciences and Pittsburgh Bacteriophage Institute, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260. Phone: (412) 624 4350. Fax: (412) 624-4870. E-mail: gfh{at}pitt.edu

{triangledown} Published ahead of print on 4 January 2008.

{dagger} Supplemental material for this article may be found at http://jb.asm.org/.

{ddagger} Present address: UG2, School of Biological Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom NR4 7TJ.

Journal of Bacteriology, March 2008, p. 2172-2182, Vol. 190, No. 6
0021-9193/08/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JB.01657-07
Copyright © 2008, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.



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