Complete genome sequence of Pseudoalteromonas phage vB_PspS-H40/1 (formerly H40/1) that infects Pseudoalteromonas sp. strain H40 and is used as biological tracer in hydrological transport studies

Pseudoalteromonas phage vB_PspS-H40/1 is a lytic phage that infects Pseudoalteromonas sp. strain H40. Both, the phage and its host were isolated in the 1970s from seawater samples collected from the North Sea near the island of Helgoland, Germany. The phage particle has an icosahedral capsid with a diameter of ~43 to 45 nm and a long non-contractile tail of ~68 nm in length, a typical morphology for members of the Siphoviridae family. The linear dsDNA genome of Pseudoalteromonas phage vB_PspS-H40/1 has a sequence length of 45,306 bp and a GC content of 40.6%. The genome has a modular structure and contains a high proportion of sequence information for hypothetical proteins, typically seen in phage genome sequences. This is the first report of the complete genome sequence of this lytic phage, which has been frequently used since the 1990s as biological tracer in hydrogeological transport studies.