Lysogenization, Transduction, and Genetic Recombination in Bacteria1
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Excerpt
Lysogeny, Infective Heredity, and Genetic Recombination
Lysogenic bacteria are characterized by the potentiality to produce bacteriophage particles. The corresponding determinants, called “prophages,” embody the detailed genetic specificity of the phage, including the sequence of phage genetic factors. Mating and transduction experiments show that prophages occupy specific sites in the linkage map or “chromosome” of the bacterial cells. Phage reproduction, genetics, properties and location of prophages have been reviewed in detail (Cold Spring Harbor Symposium, 1953; Lwoff, 1953; Jacob and Wollman, 1957; Bertani, 1958).
The acquisition of a prophage by a cell that becomes lysogenic represents a recombinational event since it produces a composite genome. In this respect, lysogeny belongs in the class of phenomena of infective bacterial heredity—transduction, transformation and the mating processes— in which only a portion of the genetic material of one cell is transferred to another cell (“meromyxis”; Wollman et al., 1956). Clarification of infective heredity requires...
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↵1 Aided by grants from the American Cancer Society, Inc., and from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Public Health Service (No. E-1807). The authors are indebted to Drs. N. D. Zinder and A. D. Kaiser for providing some of the cultures used.
