Date of Award

Fall 2025

Document Type

Open Access Thesis

Department

Biological Sciences

First Advisor

Bert Ely

Abstract

Bacteriophage play an important role in bacterial evolution, population control, and horizontal gene transfer within microbial ecosystems. This study focuses on the discovery and characterization of Caulocovert, an active bacteriophage identified in multiple Caulobacter strains. Using genome annotation tools such as Artemis and Mauve, we identified multiple key phage genes, including the major capsid protein, head-tail connector, portal protein, and major tail protein. These phage genes are present in CB13 and several other strains, such as C. vibriodies CB15 and CB2, C. segnis CBR1, Caulobacter sp. FWC26, and the distantly related Caulobacter sp. D5 strain. The location of these genes is conserved in all these strains, suggesting that these phage elements were present in the genome of an ancestral Caulobacter strain that is the ancestor of these species. Although previous studies showed that these phage genes code for a Gene Transfer Agent that is produced during stationary phage growth, we have demonstrated that they code for a plaque-forming lytic bacteriophage that we designated Caulocovert. It forms icosahedral phage heads that contain a 20 Kb genome. Host range analysis revealed that Caulocovert is capable of infecting multiple Caulobacter strains, indicating a narrower infectivity than previously reported for gene transfer agent.

Rights

© 2025, Talia Neco

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