Phages in nature.
Phages in nature.
复制标题
DOI：
10.4161/bact.1.1.14942
复制
发表时间：
2011-01-01
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Heaphy, Shaun
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Clokie, Martha Rj;Millard, Andrew D;Heaphy, Shaun
噬菌体或噬菌体是生物圈中最丰富的生物体，它们是原核生物存在的普遍特征。噬菌体是一种感染细菌的病毒。病毒也会感染寄生虫，这些是否应该被称为“寄生虫”是有争议的，但它们也被包括在本文的范围内。噬菌体作为理解基础分子生物学的工具，作为水平基因转移的载体和细菌进化的驱动力，作为诊断和遗传工具的来源以及作为新型治疗剂，一直受到科学家的关注。解开微生物学及其与宿主的关系是理解微生物系统及其开发的关键。在这篇文章中，我们描述了在不同的主机系统中的作用，并显示如何建模，显微镜，隔离，基因组和宏基因组为基础的方法走到一起，提供无与伦比的洞察这些小，但重要的组成部分的微生物世界。
Bacteriophages or phages are the most abundant organisms in the biosphere and they are a ubiquitous feature of prokaryotic existence. A bacteriophage is a virus which infects a bacterium. Archaea are also infected by viruses, whether these should be referred to as 'phages' is debatable, but they are included as such in the scope this article. Phages have been of interest to scientists as tools to understand fundamental molecular biology, as vectors of horizontal gene transfer and drivers of bacterial evolution, as sources of diagnostic and genetic tools and as novel therapeutic agents. Unraveling the biology of phages and their relationship with their hosts is key to understanding microbial systems and their exploitation. In this article we describe the roles of phages in different host systems and show how modeling, microscopy, isolation, genomic and metagenomic based approaches have come together to provide unparalleled insights into these small but vital constituents of the microbial world.