Cyanophage N-1 is a

myovirus ''Myoviridae'' is a family of bacteriophages in the order ''Caudovirales''. Bacteria and archaea serve as natural hosts. There are 625 species in this family, assigned to eight subfamilies and 217 genera. Subdivisions The subfamily ''Tevenvirin ...

bacteriophage that infects freshwater filamentous cyanobacteria of the ''

Nostoc ''Nostoc'', also known as star jelly, troll’s butter, spit of moon, fallen star, witch's butter (not to be confused with the fungi commonly known as witches' butter), and witch’s jelly, is the most common genus of cyanobacteria found in var ...

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

. The virus was first isolated by Kenneth Adolph and Robert Haselkorn in 1971 in the US, from the

nitrogen-fixing Nitrogen fixation is a chemical process by which molecular nitrogen (), with a strong triple covalent bond, in the air is converted into ammonia () or related nitrogenous compounds, typically in soil or aquatic systems but also in industry. Atm ...

cyanobacterium, ''

muscorum''. N-1 is closely related to cyanophage A-1, but only distantly to other

cyanophage Cyanophages are viruses that infect cyanobacteria, also known as Cyanophyta or blue-green algae. Cyanobacteria are a phylum of bacteria that obtain their energy through the process of photosynthesis. Although cyanobacteria metabolize photoautotro ...

s of freshwater or marine origin.

Structure

The virus has a polyhedral head with a diameter of around 61 nm. The contractile tail is 100 nm long, and is attached to the head via a tail capital. The neck region bears fibres. The mature virus particle contains at least 19 proteins.

Genome

The linear, double-stranded DNA

genome In the fields of molecular biology and genetics, a genome is all the genetic information of an organism. It consists of nucleotide sequences of DNA (or RNA in RNA viruses). The nuclear genome includes protein-coding genes and non-coding g ...

is 64,960 base pairs in length – only half the size of most phages with contractile tails, which typically fall in the range 161–231 kb. It has a GC-content of 35.4%. Of the 91

open reading frame In molecular biology, open reading frames (ORFs) are defined as spans of DNA sequence between the start and stop codons. Usually, this is considered within a studied region of a prokaryotic DNA sequence, where only one of the six possible readin ...

s (ORFs), only 33 show similarity to other known sequences. Remarkably, the genome of Cyanophage N1 encodes a functional CRISPR array, which has been suggested to protect the host against infection by competing viruses.

Life cycle and interaction with the host

The optimal pH for viral adsorption to ''N. muscorum'' is 7.6–8.1. The rate of adsorption is reduced with increasing age of the host cells. The viral latent period is 7 hours, which is similar to cyanophages of the LPP-1 group. The burst size is 100

plaque-forming unit A plaque-forming unit (PFU) is a measure used in virology to describe the number of virus particles capable of forming plaques per unit volume. It is a proxy measurement rather than a measurement of the absolute quantity of particles: viral part ...

s per cell. Host

photosynthesis Photosynthesis is a process used by plants and other organisms to convert light energy into chemical energy that, through cellular respiration, can later be released to fuel the organism's activities. Some of this chemical energy is stored i ...

is required for the virus to replicate, with photosynthesis being required throughout the life cycle, rather than at any particular point. Viral replication is powered by

cyclic photophosphorylation In the process of photosynthesis, the phosphorylation of ADP to form ATP using the energy of sunlight is called photophosphorylation. Cyclic photophosphorylation occurs in both aerobic and anaerobic conditions, driven by the main primary source of ...

and the use of

carbohydrate In organic chemistry, a carbohydrate () is a biomolecule consisting of carbon (C), hydrogen (H) and oxygen (O) atoms, usually with a hydrogen–oxygen atom ratio of 2:1 (as in water) and thus with the empirical formula (where ''m'' may or m ...

stores; photosystem II activity is not required. Cyanophage N-1 infection of ''N. muscorum'' is associated with several changes in the host's carbon and nitrogen metabolism, including an increase in

glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD or G6PDH) () is a cytosolic enzyme that catalyzes the chemical reaction : D-glucose 6-phosphate + NADP+ + H2O 6-phospho-D-glucono-1,5-lactone + NADPH + H+ This enzyme participates in the pentose phospha ...

enzyme concentration and a decrease in

glutamine synthetase Glutamine synthetase (GS) () is an enzyme that plays an essential role in the metabolism of nitrogen by catalyzing the condensation of glutamate and ammonia to form glutamine: Glutamate + ATP + NH3 → Glutamine + ADP + phosphate Glutam ...

activity.Sarma 2012, p. 433

References

Sources * Calendar R. ''The Bacteriophages'' (

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

; 2006) () * Sarma TA.'' Handbook of Cyanobacteria'' ( CRC Press; 2012) () {{Taxonbar, from=Q28402242 Myoviridae