Phun With Phages: Discovering Novel Bacteriophages in the Soil

We used three bacterial hosts: Mycobacterium smegmatis, Microbacterium foliorum, and Gordonia terrae, to isolate novel bacteriophages from soil samples. We named these phages, created high titer lysates, and purified their DNA genomes. We have archived the high titer lysates at Northwestern College and the University of Pittsburgh. The genomes of three of our phages were sequences at the University of Pittsburgh and we will be sequencing the remaining genomes this summer. Additionally, we are planning to image our phages with transmission electron microscopy at the University of Iowa or Nebraska yet this semester

Annotation of Three Actinobacteriophages: TukTuk, Shamu, and Megatron06

We annotated three newly discovered bacteriophages. TukTuk and Shamu were isolated on the host Microbacterium folorium and Megatron06 on Mycobacterium smegmatis. Based on based on gene-content similarity (GCS) of 35% or higher to sequenced bacteriophages present in the Actinobacteriophage database, phagesDB, TukTuk was assigned to cluster EB, Shamu to cluster EA, and Megatron06 to Cluster H1. Here we report a summary of our annotation findings along with one in-depth analysis of an aspect of our annotation for each phage