Bacteriophage Control of Bacterial Virulence
Year: 2002
Type: review
Abstract: are not solely between these two beings, man and bacterium, for the bacteriophage also intervenes; a third living being and, hence, a third variable is introduced ” (19). The contribution of bacteriophages to the pathogenicity of their bacterial hosts began to be uncovered as early as 1927, when Frobisher and Brown discovered that nontoxigenic streptococci exposed to filtered supernatants of toxigenic streptococcal cultures acquired the ability to produce scarlatinal toxin (28). We now know that these supernatants contained a bacteriophage encoding the scarlatinal toxin and that these investigators were describing transduction, i.e., the transfer of genetic material to a bacterial cell via phage infection. Although these early investigators lacked a mechanistic explanation for their observations, they postulated that the bacterium was “within certain limits, perhaps a matter of secondary importance and that
Source: Infection and Immunity
Authors: Patrick L. Wagner, Matthew K. Waldor
Institution: Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Language: English
Subfield: Virology
Field: Immunology and Microbiology
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2126709153