pathogens Article Biological and Genomic Characterization of a Novel Jumbo Bacteriophage, vB_VhaM_pir03 with Broad Host Lytic Activity against Vibrio harveyi Gerald N. Misol, Jr. 1,2 , Constantina Kokkari 1 and Pantelis Katharios 1,* 1 Institute of Marine Biology, Biotechnology and Aquaculture, Hellenic Center for Marine Research, 71500 Heraklion, Crete, Greece;
[email protected] (G.N.M.J.);
[email protected] (C.K.) 2 Department of Biology, University of Crete, 71003 Heraklion, Crete, Greece * Correspondence:
[email protected] Received: 18 October 2020; Accepted: 14 December 2020; Published: 15 December 2020 Abstract: Vibrio harveyi is a Gram-negative marine bacterium that causes major disease outbreaks and economic losses in aquaculture. Phage therapy has been considered as a potential alternative to antibiotics however, candidate bacteriophages require comprehensive characterization for a safe and practical phage therapy. In this work, a lytic novel jumbo bacteriophage, vB_VhaM_pir03 belonging to the Myoviridae family was isolated and characterized against V. harveyi type strain DSM19623. It had broad host lytic activity against 31 antibiotic-resistant strains of V. harveyi, V. alginolyticus, V. campbellii and V. owensii. Adsorption time of vB_VhaM_pir03 was determined at 6 min while the latent-phase was at 40 min and burst-size at 75 pfu/mL. vB_VhaM_pir03 was able to lyse several host strains at multiplicity-of-infections (MOI) 0.1 to 10. The genome of vB_VhaM_pir03 consists of 286,284 base pairs with 334 predicted open reading frames (ORFs). No virulence, antibiotic resistance, integrase encoding genes and transducing potential were detected. Phylogenetic and phylogenomic analysis showed that vB_VhaM_pir03 is a novel bacteriophage displaying the highest similarity to another jumbo phage, vB_BONAISHI infecting Vibrio coralliilyticus.