IntroductionBacteriophages infecting human pathogens have been considered potential biocontrol agents, and studying their genetic content is essential to their safe use in the food industry.Tequatrovirus ufvareg1is a bacteriophage named UFV-AREG1, isolated from cowshed wastewater and previously tested for its ability to inhibitEscherichia coliO157:H7.MethodsT. ufvareg1 was previously isolated using E.coliO157:H7 (ATCC 43895) as a bacterial host. The same strain was used for bacteriophage propagation and the one-step growth curve. The genome of the T. ufvareg1 was sequenced using 305 Illumina HiSeq, and the genome comparison was calculated by VIRIDIC and VIPTree.ResultsHere, we characterize its genome and compare it to otherTequatrovirus.T. ufvareg1virions have an icosahedral head (114 x 86 nm) and a contracted tail (117 x 23 nm), with a latent period of 25 min, and an average burst size was 18 phage particles per infectedE. colicell. The genome of the bacteriophageT. ufvareg1contains 268 coding DNA sequences (CDS) and ten tRNA genes distributed in both negative and positive strains.T. ufvareg1genome also contains 40 promoters on its regulatory regions and two rho-independent terminators.T. ufvareg1shares an average intergenomic similarity (VIRIDC) of 88.77% and an average genomic similarity score (VipTree) of 88.91% with eight four reference genomes forTequatrovirusavailable in the NCBI RefSeq database. The pan-genomic analysis confirmed the high conservation ofTequatrovirusgenomes. Among all CDS annotated in theT. ufvareg1genome, there are 123 core genes, 38 softcore genes, 94 shell genes, and 13 cloud genes. None of 268 CDS was classified as being exclusive ofT. ufvareg1.ConclusionThe results in this paper, combined with other previously published findings, indicate thatT. ufvareg1bacteriophage is a potential candidate for food protection againstE. coliO157:H7 in foods.