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Isolation and characterization of marine psychrophilic phage-host systems from Arctic sea ice

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Abstract

Phage-host systems from extreme cold environments have rarely been surveyed. This study is concerned with the isolation and characterization of three different phage-host systems from Arctic sea ice and melt pond samples collected north-west of Svalbard (Arctic). On the basis of 16S rDNA sequences, the three bacterial phage hosts exhibited the greatest similarity to the species Shewanella frigidimarina (96.0%), Flavobacterium hibernum (94.0%), and Colwellia psychrerythraea (98.4%), respectively. The host bacteria are psychrophilic with good growth at 0°C, resulting in a rapid formation of visible colonies at this temperature. The phages showed an even more pronounced adaptation to cold temperatures than the bacteria, with growth maxima below 14°C and good plaque formation at 0°C. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) examinations revealed that the bacteriophages belonged to the tailed, double-stranded DNA phage families Siphoviridae and Myoviridae. All three phages were host-specific.

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Acknowledgment

This work was supported by the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (03F0278B).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut für Marine Biotechnologie, Rathenau Strasse 49a, 17489, Greifswald, Germany

    Michael Borriss & Thomas Schweder

  2. Alfred-Wegener-Institut für Polar- und Meeresforschung, Am Handelshafen 12, 27570, Bremerhaven, Germany

    Elisabeth Helmke

  3. Institut für Mikrobiologie, Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Universität Greifswald, Jahnstrasse 15a, 17487, Greifswald, Germany

    Renate Hanschke & Thomas Schweder

Authors
  1. Michael Borriss
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  2. Elisabeth Helmke
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  3. Renate Hanschke
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  4. Thomas Schweder
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Thomas Schweder.

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Communicated by K. Horikoshi

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Borriss, M., Helmke, E., Hanschke, R. et al. Isolation and characterization of marine psychrophilic phage-host systems from Arctic sea ice. Extremophiles 7, 377–384 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00792-003-0334-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00792-003-0334-7

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