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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, November 2002, p. 5311-5317, Vol. 68, No. 11
0099-2240/02/$04.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/AEM.68.11.5311-5317.2002
Copyright © 2002, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

The Murein Hydrolase of the Bacteriophage 3626 Dual Lysis System Is Active against All Tested Clostridium perfringens Strains

Markus Zimmer, Natsa Vukov, Siegfried Scherer, and Martin J. Loessner^*

Institut für Mikrobiologie, FML Weihenstephan, Technische Universität München, Weihenstephaner Berg 3, D-85350 Freising, Germany

Received 29 March 2002/ Accepted 2 August 2002

Clostridium perfringens commonly occurs in food and feed, can produce an enterotoxin frequently implicated in food-borne disease, and has a substantial negative impact on the poultry industry. As a step towards new approaches for control of this organism, we investigated the cell wall lysis system of C. perfringens bacteriophage 3626, whose dual lysis gene cassette consists of a holin gene and an endolysin gene. Hol3626 has two membrane-spanning domains (MSDs) and is a group II holin. A positively charged beta turn between the two MSDs suggests that both the amino terminus and the carboxy terminus of Hol3626 might be located outside the cell membrane, a very unusual holin topology. Holin function was experimentally demonstrated by using the ability of the holin to complement a deletion of the heterologous phage S holin in Sthf. The endolysin gene ply3626 was cloned in Escherichia coli. However, protein synthesis occurred only when bacteria were supplemented with rare tRNA^Arg and tRNA^Ile genes. Formation of inclusion bodies could be avoided by drastically lowering the expression level. Amino-terminal modification by a six-histidine tag did not affect enzyme activity and enabled purification by metal chelate affinity chromatography. Ply3626 has an N-terminal amidase domain and a unique C-terminal portion, which might be responsible for the specific lytic range of the enzyme. All 48 tested strains of C. perfringens were sensitive to the murein hydrolase, whereas other clostridia and bacteria belonging to other genera were generally not affected. This highly specific activity towards C. perfringens might be useful for novel biocontrol measures in food, feed, and complex microbial communities.

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