The importance of phage in fundamental biology

Abstract

Of necessity this chapter is a long one because of the extent to which materials, techniques and concepts stemming from bacteriophage studies have permeated the science of biology in the past two decades. The chapter falls naturally into three subsections. First and foremost is the concept of the physical nature of the gene that has been provided by studies using phage. It is not true that Hershey and Chase’s experiments first showed that genes were composed of DNA — Avery’s work on the bacterial transforming principle should have convinced most people years before but it was the realisation that with phage one could introduce selected, uncluttered genes into an environment (the cell) designed for their exploitation that formed the linchpin of the genetic revolution. We must therefore take a long look at phage as a genetic system in its own right. But to what extent is genetic knowledge obtained from phage studies applicable to other organisms? In the second subsection we will consider the facile exchanges of genetic material between bacteriophages and bacterial cells that lead us to suppose that they operate on the same genetic basis.