First description of a cyanophage infecting the 1 cyanobacterium Arthrospira platensis ( Spirulina )

cyanobacterium Arthrospira platensis (Spirulina) 2 3 Stéphan JACQUET 1 , Xu ZHONG 1 , Parvathi AMMINI 1,2 , Angia Sriram PRADEEP 4 RAM 3 5 6 1. INRA, UMR 042 CARRTEL, 75 Avenue de Corzent, 74203 Thonon-les-Bains cx, France 7 2. National Institute of Oceanography, Dr Salim Ali Road, PO Box 1913, Kochi, 682018 India 8 3. Laboratoire Microorganismes : Génome et Environnment, UMR CNRS 6023, Clermont Université, 9 Université Blaise Pascal, BP 80026 63171 Aubière Cedex, France 10 11 12 13 Abstract 14 Cyanobacteria constitute a versatile group of photosynthetic bacteria of immense commercial and 15 ecological importance. Some species of this group are cultivated and sold as food because of their 16 high nutritional value. This is typically the case for Arthrospira platensis. We describe for the first 17 time a virus infecting this economically important filamentous cyanobacterium isolated from 18 culture pools located in the South of France. This virus could be observed and discriminated easily 19 from other particles with flow cytometry. Based on morphology and molecular investigation, it was 20 proposed that the virus belongs to the cyanopodovirus group with a capsid and short tail of about 21 120 and 20 nm, respectively. Finally, the virus appeared to be highly specific (very narrow host 22 range) to A. platensis. 23 24