CHARACTERIZATION OF THE GENOME REGION ENCODING STRUCTURAL PROTEINS OFLACTOBACILLUS-DELBRUECKII SUBSP LACTIS BACTERIOPHAGE-LL-H

Two regions from the genome of the virulent Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. lactis bacteriophage LL-H were sequenced (2330 and 12939 bp; 44 % of the 34.6-kb genome). Together with the previously sequenced regio n containing the major capsid protein-encoding gene (2498 bp), the seq uence had 21 open reading frames (ORFs) on the main coding strand, Onl y two putative ORFs were detected on the complementary strand. The ORF s covered 93.2% of the sequence. All but four of the ORFs were precede d by a ribosome-binding site. Only four longer non-coding stretches of sequences (175-278 nucleotides (nt) in size) were present. The longes t of the non-coding regions contained an A + T-rich sequence that is s urrounded by eight perfect copies of an 8-nt sequence that is present both as direct and inverted repeats. This region could represent the o rigin of replication. All the previously mapped structural protein-enc oding genes of phage LL-H were included in the sequence. Genes were id entified for the following five proteins: gp19 (encoded by gene g17), gp58 (g71), gp61 (g57), gp75 (g70) and gp89 (g88). N-terminal amino-ac id sequencing was performed on gp19 and gp75, and it was found that th e N-terminal Met had been post-translationally removed from both prote ins.