Complete Genome Sequence of Stenotrophomonas Phage Pokken

Stenotrophomonas maltophilia is a Gram-negative bacterium associated with multidrug-resistant nosocomial infections, a problem for immunocompromised patients and those with cystic fibrosis. Here, we present the new S. maltophilia-infecting podophage Pokken. Its 76,239-bp genome, with 92 protein-coding genes and 5 tRNA genes predicted, is similar to that of phage N4.

S tenotrophomonas maltophilia is an emerging Gram-negative multidrug-resistant opportunistic pathogen (1). Increasingly, S. maltophilia has been seen in nosocomial infections in intensive care units and in immunocompromised individuals (2). Additionally, S. maltophilia is associated with severe pulmonary disease in cystic fibrosis patients (3). In the interest of exploring potential therapeutic treatment options, we isolated and annotated the genome of S. maltophilia podophage Pokken.
The 76,239-bp genome of podophage Pokken has a 55% GϩC content, lower than the 66.8% average GϩC content of the host (20). Our analysis predicted 92 protein-coding genes and 5 tRNA genes, yielding an overall 92.8% coding density. Of the 29 protein-coding genes that were assigned putative functions, 18 were similar by BLASTp search to enterobacterial phage N4 (GenBank accession number NC_008720). Pokken has an overall 29.94% identity with phage N4 and was predicted to contain 627-bp direct terminal repeats, which were somewhat longer than the direct terminal repeats in phage N4 (21). Additionally, Pokken encodes four putative tail fiber proteins in a row (NCBI accession number QEG09305 to QEG09308), and bacteriophage Prado encodes four tail fiber proteins in a row similar to those of Pokken (GenBank accession number KF626667) (22).
Data availability. The genome sequence and associated data for phage Pokken were deposited under GenBank accession number MN062186, BioProject accession number PRJNA222858, SRA accession number SRR8892199, and BioSample accession number SAMN11411460.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was supported by funding from the National Science Foundation (award DBI-1565146) and the Citrus Research and Development Foundation (project C726) to C.F.G. Additional support came from the Center for Phage Technology (CPT), an Initial University Multidisciplinary Research Initiative supported by Texas A&M University and Texas AgriLife, and from the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics of Texas A&M University.
We are grateful for the advice and support of the CPT staff. This announcement was prepared in partial fulfillment of the requirements for BICH464 Bacteriophage Genomics, an undergraduate course at Texas A&M University.