Molecular cloning and characterization of bacteriophage P2 genes R and S involved in tail completion

The sequences of two previously known tail genes, R and S, of the temperate bacteriophage P2 and the sequence of an additional open reading frame (orf-30) located between S and V, were determined. Amber mutations mapping within R and S, Ram3, Ram42, Ram23, Sam75, and Sam89 were sequenced and found to be within their corresponding open reading frames. We constructed overproducing plasmids for R and S and identified these proteins by SDS-PAGE of whole-cell lysates and Coomassie blue staining. The predicted molecular masses of proteins R and S were M(r) 17,400 and 17,300, respectively, although both polypeptides migrated more slowly during gel electrophoresis than would be expected from the sequence data. orf-30 occupies the strand opposite from RS and V and is preceded by several weak potential sigma 70-RNA polymerase promoters, some of which overlap with the V promoter. A construct that had the putative orf-30 promoter region upstream of the lacZ gene produced low levels of beta-galactosidase activity in vivo. Expression from the orf-30 promoter was not stimulated by the phage P4 transcriptional activator protein, delta, which acts at all the known P2 and P4 late promoters. Insertion mutagenesis showed that orf-30 was not an essential gene for P2 growth in Escherichia coli. None of the gene or protein sequences exhibited extensive homology to sequences in the nucleic acid and protein databases. However, the R protein contains a small region homologous to one in the phage T4 tail protein gp15, which is required for T4 tails to bind heads. We propose that R and S are tail completion proteins that are essential for stable head joining.