Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
4359105 | Research in Microbiology | 2008 | 8 Pages |
Abstract
The recognition of the vast numbers of bacteriophages in the biosphere has prompted a renewal of interest in understanding their morphological and genetic diversity, and elucidating the evolutionary mechanisms that give rise to them. We have approached these questions by isolating and characterizing a collection of mycobacteriophages that infect a common bacterial host, Mycobacterium smegmatis. Comparative genomic analysis of 50 mycobacteriophages shows that they are highly diverse, although not uniformly so, that they are pervasively mosaic with a multitude of single gene modules, and that this mosaicism is generated through illegitimate recombination.
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Authors
Graham F. Hatfull, Steven G. Cresawn, Roger W. Hendrix,