THE NUCLEOTIDE-SEQUENCE OF THE BACTERIOPHAGE-T5 LTF GENE

The nucleotide sequence of the bacteriophage T5 BglII-BamHI fragment ( 4,835 hp in length) known to carry a gene encoding the LTF protein whi ch forms the phage L-shaped tail fibers was determined, It was shown t o contain an open reading frame for 1,396 amino acid residues that cor responds to a protein of 147.8 kDa, The coding region of ltf gene is p receded by a typical Shine-Dalgarno sequence, Downstream from the ltf gene there is a strong transcription terminator Data bank analysis of the LTF protein sequence reveals 55.1% identity to the hypothetical pr otein ORF 401 of bacteriophage lambda in a segment of 118 amino acids overlap.