University Archives

Bacteriophages are a diverse topic that remains largely undiscovered in biology. Bacteriophages have been found to have significant health benefits through phage therapy. Through phage, antibiotic resistant bacteria can be specifically reached and terminated. The discovery of the health benefits of bacteriophages helps understand why the demand for bacteriophages has exponentially increased. Khan1 is a recently discovered bacteriophage found by the University of Detroit Mercy. By studying Khan1, the traits discovered could be used to understand other phages in the subcluster B1. The genome of mycobacteriophage Khan1 was annotated using bioinformatics tools that included Glimmer, GeneMark, NCBI BLASTp, HHPred, PhagesDB, DeepTMHMM, and CDD that were all used within the PECAAN platform. Each gene was analyzed for different coding potential, accurate start site selection, and gene validity to help to form multiple lines of evidence. By utilizing these tools, it was discovered that genes 44-48 code for DNA binding structures and functions. These genes encoded proteins that were identified through HHPred and CDD that allowed DNA to bind to specific sequences. Genes 81-96 code for hypothetical proteins that lacked a nonfunctional domain despite having strong sequence conservation. Understanding the traits these genes code allowed for the use of synteny in future research of subcluster B1 bacteriophages to better predict the functions of genes as they are discovered.