Diversity of Marine Phage in the Pacific Ocean

这个项目旨在调查太平洋几个地点的海洋噬菌体的多样性。噬菌体是海洋环境中无处不在的组成部分，浓度经常达到每毫升数千万至数亿个。噬菌体的衰变速度很快，这表明必须有很高的产量才能维持观察到的常备库存。虽然已经有许多尝试将这些观察结果及其含义（如海洋细菌的死亡率）纳入海洋微生物食物网，但这些研究大多忽略了宿主/病毒相互作用的特异性。事实上，海洋噬菌体的多样性基本上是未知的。噬菌体分离物的鉴定将通过电子显微镜、脉冲场凝胶电泳和测序来完成。这些测试是专门设计来识别噬菌体并将它们分类在已知的类群中，并识别代表新类群的噬菌体。这项研究将是第一个系统地解决这种未表征的生物群的遗传多样性。本文所制定和使用的方案将为噬菌体在其他环境下的研究提供重要的背景工作。

DEB 9972054 AzamThis project is designed to survey the diversity of marine phages from several sites in the Pacific Ocean. Bacteriophage are ubiquitous components of the marine environment frequently reaching concentrations of tens to hundreds of millions of individuals per ml. The decay rates of the bacteriophage are rapid, suggesting that production must be high to maintain the observed standing stocks. While numerous attempts have been made to incorporate these observations and their implications-such as mortality of marine bacteria-into the marine microbial food web, most of these studies have ignored the specificity of host/virus interactions. In fact, the diversity of marine phage is essentially unknown. Characterization of the phage isolates will be accomplished by electron microscopy, Pulse-field Gel Electrophoresis, and sequencing. These tests are specifically designed to identify the phage and classify them within known groups and to identify phage that represent novel groups. This study will be the first to systematically address the genetic diversity of this uncharacterized biota. The protocols develop and utilized here will provide the important background work for studies of phage in other environments.