Characterization and genomic analysis of the novel Aeromonas veronii phage pAEv1812.

Bacteria of the species Aeromonas veronii are generally ubiquitous in different aquatic environments and are capable of causing a variety of diseases in aquatic animals. In this work, the phage isolate pAEv1812, which is lytic to A. veronii strain 1810, was characterized and sequenced. Morphological analysis revealed that pAEv1812 has a symmetrical head and a long non-contractile tail. A one-step growth curve analysis showed that the latent period and burst period of pAEv1812 were approximately 40 min and 80 min, respectively, with a burst size of 190 PFU/infected cell. The genome of phage pAEv1812 is 61,461 bp in length with a G+C content of 61.4%. Eighteen of the 75 putative proteins encoded by this phage have known functions, and there were no rRNA and tRNA genes in the genome. Phylogenetic analysis based on amino acid sequences of the major capsid protein and terminase large subunit suggested that phage pAEv1812 should be included as a member of the genus Chivirus.