Tape measure protein having MT3 motif facilitates phage entry into stationary phase cells of Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

Tape measure protein (TMP) having MT3 motif in mycobacteriophage TM4 genome has been reported to enable the phage infection of Mycobacterium smegmatis during stationary phase. In the present work looking at eight additional mycobacteriophage genomes by in silico analysis, six of them have been found to possess MT3 motif in TMP. The absence of MT3 motif in Che12 and D29 probably makes them incapable of infecting stationary phase cells of Mycobacterium tuberculosis which was experimentally evaluated by the performance of respective luciferase reporter phage constructs developed from the parental phages Che12, D29 and TM4.