Physiological Studies of Conditional Lethal Mutants of Bacteriophage T4D

Following infection of a sensitive bacterium with a phage, a characteristic series of intracellular events occur. In the case of the virulent phage T4, these events include both the cessation of synthesis of many macromolecular constituents characteristic of the growing bacterial cell, and the establishment of a new biosynthetic pattern directed toward the growth and reproduction of the phage. In this new pattern of events, one set of synthetic activities follows another in temporal sequence. For example, a series of enzymes concerned with the synthesis of phage-specific DNA are formed during the first ten minutes following infection while the protein components of the phage particles are synthesized later (see, for example, Kellenberger, 1961). These events are due to the introduction of the phage genome into the bacterial cell and it becomes, therefore, of basic interest to understand how the phage genome is implicated in these processes. This problem which...