Characterization and complete genome sequence of the Shigella bacteriophage pSf-1

Shigellosis is a global health problem, and Shigella flexneri is the major cause of this disease. In this study, we isolated a virulent Siphoviridae bacteriophage (phage), pSf-1, that infects S. flexneri. This phage was isolated from the Han River in Korea and was found to infect S. flexneri, Shigella boydii, and Shigella sonnei. One-step growth analysis revealed that this phage has a short latent period (10 min) and a large burst size (86.86 PFU/cell), indicating that pSf-1 has good host infectivity and effective lytic activity. The double-stranded DNA genome of pSf-1 is composed of 51,821 bp with a G + C content of 44.02%. The genome encodes 94 putative ORFs, 71 putative promoters, and 60 transcriptional terminator regions. Genome sequence analysis of pSf-1 and comparative analysis with the homologous Shigella phage Shfl1 revealed that there is a high degree of similarity between pSf-1 and Shfl1 in 54 of the 94 ORFs of pSf-1. The results of this investigation indicate that pSf-1 is a novel Shigella phage and that this phage might have potential uses against shigellosis.