Physical mapping and partial genetic characterization of the Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus bacteriophage lb539.

A restriction map was constructed of the 37 kb genome of the temperate Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus bacteriophage lb539. Restriction analysis and Southern hybridization experiments detected variable levels of homologous regions among the genomes of lb539 and the L. delbrueckii reference phages LL-H (virulent) and mv4 (temperate). The principal homology was observed at the regions encoding the structural proteins. These studies allowed us to construct a partial genetic map of phage lb539 for lysin, the main structural tail protein and the packaging region genes. Furthermore, a short 1.5 kb DNA fragment of the prolate-headed JCL1032 phage genome was observed to be highly homologous with the DNA of the isometric-headed lb539, mv4 and LL-H phages. The described distribution of the homologous regions between the genomes of the phages lb539, LL-H, mv4 and JCL1032 presented here supports the modular evolution theory of the bacteriophages.