Bacteriophages are viruses that parasitize bacteria. Bacteriophages were jointly discovered by Frederick
Twort (1915) in England and by Felix d'Herelle (1917) at the Pasteur Institute in France. Felix d'Herelle
coined the term “Bacteriophage”. Bacteriophage means to eat bacteria, and are called so because
virulent bacteriophage can cause the compete lysis of a susceptible bacterial culture. They are commonly
referred as “phage”. Phages are obligate intracellular parasites that multiply inside bacteria by making
use of some or all of the host biosynthetic machinery. They occur widely in nature and can readily be
isolated from feces and sewage. There are at least 12 distinct groups of bacteriophages, which are very
diverse structurally and genetically.
No comments:
Post a Comment