Orf56 codes for a 91.2-kDa protein of 808 amino acids that possesses a C-terminal peptidoglycan-degrading domain (amino acids 678-808). We assigned this domain to the cysteine, histidine-dependent amidohydrolase/peptidase (CHAP) family through bioinformatic analysis (additional file 3, Figure

S1) based on the reported characteristics of this domain [35]. Figure 1 Phage K genome. A section JQ1 of Phage K genome comprising the ORFs 29 to 67 is depicted. ORFs are indicated by colored arrows: putative lysis module (green), structural module (orange), proteins with a putative/hypothetical function (blue) and ORF56 (black). BLASTP [27] searches revealed that ORF56 is related to the tail lysin protein ORF005 of Staphylococcus phage G1 and ORF007 of Staphylococcus

phage Twort. A significant similarity was also found with GP98 of Listeria phage A511 (E value: 1e-120), GP29 of Listeria phage P100 (E value: 6e-120), putative tail lysin of Enterococcus phage PhiEF24C (E value: 3e-100), and putative tail lysin of Lactobacillus phage Lb338-1 (E value: 6e-53). Protein expression and activity of ORF56 and its N-terminal truncated forms CHAP domain-containing proteins have been reported to be lytic to staphylococci [36]. Incubating 100 μl crude preparation of ORF56 with 1 × 107 cells of MRSA clinical isolate B911 for 60 min reduced CFUs by 90% compared with the control, demonstrating www.selleckchem.com/products/srt2104-gsk2245840.html its bactericidal activity against S. aureus (additional file 4, Figure S2). To determine the function of ORF56, we cloned

and expressed the full-length (2427-bp) orf56 gene. This yielded a 91-kDa protein as well as lower molecular-weight proteins, all of which showed muralytic activity on zymograms. from This observation led us to generate truncated forms of ORF56 (57, 50, 23, 19, 16, and 13 kDa) (Figure 2a), all of which showed muralytic activity on zymograms and bactericidal activity against live Staphylococcus cells, except for the 13-kDa form, which was active only on zymograms (data not shown). The truncated 16-kDa ORF56, designated as Lys16 (Figure 2b), which showed cell wall-degrading activity on zymogram (Figure 2c) and lethal activity in S. aureus cultures (Figure 2d), was chosen for further characterization and development. Figure 2 ORF56 derivatives and purity profile, zymogram, and bactericidal activity of Lys16. (a) Schematic representation of ORF56 and its N-terminal truncated forms. (b) SDS-PAGE profile of Lys16. Lane 1: molecular weight marker (97.5-14 kDa), Lane 2: purified Lys16 (5 μg). (c) Zymogram of purified Lys16 (5 μg) on autoclaved S aureus RN4220 cells. The muralytic activity of Lys16 is seen as a clear zone. (d) Bactericidal activity of Lys16. Purified Lys16 (100 μg/ml) reduced MRSA B911 viable CFUs by three orders of magnitude (99.9% cells killed).