Lambda phage

She was best known for discovering a virus that infected bacteria. She called this virus lambda bacteriophage and discovered it in 1951 while she studied at the University of Wisconsin. She and her husband, Joshua Lederberg produced a way that they could easily transfer bacteria from one petri dish to another. They called his process replica plating. In 1958, Joshua received the Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine because of his and Esther's work. In Joshua's acceptance speech, he mentioned that he enjoyed the company of his colleagues, including his wife. He did not however, mention the important role she had in their discoveries. Esther was not presented with any recognition for her…

Introduction Bacteriophages, informally known as phages, are a specific type of virus that only infect bacteria. Since their discovery in the early 1900s , researchers have began studying the various behaviors and interactions of phages within the environment (Poxleitner, Pope, Jacobs-Sera, Sivanathan, & Hatfull, 2016). Their name, bacteriophages, is derived from the idea that they are “bacteria eaters.” Due to their bacteria-destroying nature, they have been used in phage therapy in which they…

step in phage infection is the attachment of the phage to the host cell surface. This is typically accomplished by the recognition of a receptor on the outside of the bacterial cell wall such as an antigen, pilus or other structure. There is much variability from phage to phage in terms of which receptor they bind to. Bacteriophage can generally be classified into two categories, lysogenic and lytic (virulent) (Fig 6). The choice between the lytic and lysogenic cycle depends on the relative…

The mouse tissue was collected 3 days after UVB exposure to allow the DNA lesions to be fixed into the DNA and expressed as stable mutations. Then high molecular weight DNA is extracted from tissues and purified. The shuttle vector which contains a target gene was recovered from genomic DNA with in vitro packaging extracts and the antioxidant (olive oil) was applied. (The mutations in the target gene are detected by a change in lambda phage plaque color.) They were plated for plaque formation at…

their host when they contain extra genes in their genome that cause the production of toxins that disrupt the normal function of the host’s biological tissues. These toxins are biological poisons that can kill cells they come in contact with. Normally, cells in the intestines are most affected by these toxins, but if the toxins enter the bloodstream, they can cause damage to the kidneys and nervous system, causing death in some cases (Ingerson-Mahar and Reid, 2011). Predators of bacteria…