KM1, a Bacteriophage of Clostridium butyricum

Characteristics of bacteriophage KM1, which infects Clostridium butyricum, are described, and several important properties are compared with those of phage 5, which infects the same species. Phage KM1 has a hexagonal head and a tail with a contractile sheath. Agarose gel electrophoresis patterns of Bg/II, EcoRI and HindIII fragments of the two phage DNAs differed greatly. The G+C contents were 30.5 mol% for phage KM1 and 35.4 mol% for phage 5. Among the 32 strains of clostridia tested, phage KM1 infected only C. butyricum MII588. Other properties of phage KM1 are also discussed.