Temperate phages play an important role in the evolution of bacteria. So far, lytic phages have been wildly reported, but there is still limited knowledge regarding temperate phages in the genome of pathogenic Staphylococcus caprae. Here we present the characteristics and genome analysis of a novel bacteriophage IME1323_01, which is the first isolated bacteriophage of S. caprae. The phage genome is a 44282-bp linear dsDNA molecule with a GC content of 34.18%, which is similar to its host. The genome of IME1323_01 is most closely related with that of temperate phage IME1318_01, whereas the homology coverage is just 34%. Genome and proteome analyses confirmed the lysogenic nature of phage IME1323_01, which encodes the typical lysogen-related proteins integrase, CI, Cro, and anti-repressor proteins. Genomic and phylogenetic analysis revealed that phage IME1323_01 is a newly discovered phage, which belongs to subfamily Azeredovirinae in the family Siphoviridae. The goal of this study is to increase our knowledge about the phages of S. caprae and expand our armamentarium against the escalating threat of pathogenic bacteria.

温带噬菌体在细菌的进化中起着重要作用。迄今为止，裂解噬菌体已被广泛报道，但对致病性山羊葡萄球菌基因组中的温带噬菌体的了解仍然有限。在这里，我们介绍了一种新型噬菌体 IME1323_01 的特征和基因组分析，这是第一个分离的山羊链球菌噬菌体. 噬菌体基因组是一个44282-bp的线性dsDNA分子，GC含量为34.18%，与其宿主相似。IME1323_01的基因组与温带噬菌体IME1318_01的基因组关系最密切，而同源性覆盖率仅为34%。基因组和蛋白质组分析证实了噬菌体 IME1323_01 的溶原性，它编码典型的溶源相关蛋白整合酶、CI、Cro 和抗阻遏蛋白。基因组和系统发育分析表明，噬菌体IME1323_01是新发现的噬菌体，属于Siphoviridae家族Azeredovirinae亚科。这项研究的目的是增加我们对山羊链球菌噬菌体的了解，并扩大我们的武器库以应对不断升级的病原菌威胁。