Widespread Distribution of a Group I Intron and Its Three Deletion Derivatives in the Lysin Gene of Streptococcus thermophilus Bacteriophages

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Abstract
Of 62 Streptococcus thermophilus bacteriophages isolated from various ecological settings, half contain a lysin gene interrupted by a group IA2 intron. Phage mRNA splicing was demonstrated. Five phages possess a variant form of the intron resulting from three distinct deletion events located in the intron-harbored open reading frame (orf 253). The predicted orf 253 gene sequence showed a significantly lower GC content than the surrounding intron and lysin gene sequences, and the predicted protein shared a motif with endonucleases found in phages from both gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria. A comparison of the phage lysin genes revealed a clear division between intron-containing and intron-free alleles, leading to the establishment of a 14-bp consensus sequence associated with intron possession. The conserved intron was not found elsewhere in the phage or S. thermophilus bacterial genomes. Folding of the intron RNA revealed secondary structure elements shared with other phage introns: first, a 38-bp insertion between regions P3 and P4 that can be folded into two stem-loop structures (shared with introns from Bacillus phage SPO1 and relatives); second, a conserved P7.2 region (shared with all phage introns); third, the location of the stop codon from orf 253 in the P8 stem (shared with coliphage T4 and Bacillus phage SPO1 introns); fourth, orf 253, which has sequence similarity with the H-N-H motif of putative endonuclease genes found in introns from Lactococcus , Lactobacillus , and Bacillus phages.