Celebration of Scholars
#58: Characterization of Johnathan's Phams
Name:
Victoria Richter
Major: Psychology, Neuroscience
Hometown: Oak Park, IL
Faculty Sponsor: Deborah Tobiason
Other Sponsors:
Type of research: Course project
Name:
Hilda Gonzalez
Major: Biology, Spanish
Hometown: Cicero, IL
Faculty Sponsor: Deborah Tobiason
Other Sponsors:
Type of research: Course project
Name:
Andrew Hallstrom
Major: Physics
Hometown: Roscoe, IL
Faculty Sponsor: Deborah Tobiason
Other Sponsors:
Type of research: Course project
Name:
Ella Pettinger
Major: Biology
Hometown: Dubuque, IA
Faculty Sponsor: Deborah Tobiason
Other Sponsors:
Type of research: Course project
Name:
John Vejvoda
Major: Biology, Studio Art
Hometown: Spring Grove, IL
Faculty Sponsor: Deborah Tobiason
Other Sponsors:
Type of research: Course project
Abstract
Bacteriophages are viruses that infect strictly bacterial hosts. Bacteriophages (phages) can be found wherever bacteria exist. Phages help regulate the levels of bacteria in the environment and can be used in phage therapy, which is an alternative to antibiotics. Our phage, Johnathan, is one of two phages isolated in the fall 2021 semester at Carthage College and sent in for DNA sequencing. Johnathan uses Microbacterium foliorium as its host and is a lytic Siphoviridae phage belonging to cluster EB. Our group’s main goal has been to analyze Johnathan’s genome in its entirety. In order to do so, we utilized a combination of comparative tools to determine the extent of Johnathan’s similarity with other phages in the database, along with gene prediction algorithms to create a draft annotation, including possible gene functions. The bulk of our work was performed using the program PECAAN, as it compiles data from BLAST, HHPred, Starterator, and Phamerator in order to predict the function and placement of each gene by comparing it to similar genome sequences in other bacteriophages. The final annotations will be published in GenBank, where they can be viewed and compared to other phages for future studies. We are continuing our analyses of Johnathan and comparing it to other phages in the database.Submit date: April 1, 2022, 1:33 p.m.