Current status: the morphology diversity of Bacillus subtilis phages and their genome size

Abstract

Abstract Bacillus subtilis phages are viruses that specifically infect Bacillus subtilis. The exploration of Bacillus subtilis phages are very important related to their application in the agroindustry, especially as biocontrol in contamination of the raw materials and food products. The comparative study of morphology and genome size of Bacillus subtilis phages were carried out to understand phage interactions with their hosts. Until this article is presented, there are 18 species of Bacillus subtilis phages from various region of the world. They are 9 species in the Myoviridae family, 4 species in the Siphoviridae family, and 5 species in the Podoviridae family. The range of genome size of B. subtilis phages were known from 18,000 to 160,000 bp with different ranges of ORFs 15–250. Their protein function can be identified between 20–60%.