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Updated: Mar 25, 2026

Synthesis of Infectious Bacteriophages in an E. coli-based Cell-free Expression System
Published on: August 17, 2017
Experimental evidence for proteins constituting virion components and particle morphogenesis of bacteriophage ZF40
Natalia Korol1, An Van den Bossche2, Liudmyla Romaniuk3
1Department of Bacteriophage Molecular Genetics, D. K. Zabolotny Institute of Microbiology and Virology, NAS of Ukraine, D03680 Kyiv, Ukraine natalia@korol.biz.
Abstract:
Bacteriophage ZF40 is the only currently available, temperate Myoviridae phage infecting the potato pathogen Pectobacterium carotovorum subsp. carotovorum. Despite its unusual tail morphology, its major tail sheath and tube proteins remained uncharacterized after the initial genome annotation. Using ESI tandem mass-spectrometry, 24 structural proteins of the ZF40 virion were identified, with a sequence coverage ranging between 15.8% and 87.8%. The putative function of 16 proteins could be elucidated based on secondary structure analysis and conservative domain searches. The experimental annotation of 35% of the encoded gene products within the structural region of the genome represents a complete view of the virion structure, which can serve as the basis for future structural analysis as a model phage.
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