[Frontiers in Bioscience E4, 1823-1829, January 1, 2012]

Cell biology perspectives in phage biology

Mireille Ansaldi1

1Laboratoire de Chimie Bacterienne, CNRS-UPR9043, Institut de Microbiologie de la Mediterranee, Aix-Marseille Universite, 31 Chemin Joseph Aiguier,13402, Marseille cedex 20, France

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Abstract
2. Introduction
3. Lysis-lysogeny decision in lambda phage
3.1. Phage adsorption and DNA injection
3.2. Lysis-lysogeny decision
4. Replication and transcription
4.1. Phi29 replication
4.2. Cystoviridae transcription
5. Perspectives
6. Acknowledgments
7. References

1. ABSTRACT

Cellular biology has long been restricted to large cellular organisms. However, as the resolution of microscopic methods increased, it became possible to study smaller cells, in particular bacterial cells. Bacteriophage biology is one aspect of bacterial cell biology that has recently gained insight from cell biology. Despite their small size, bacteriophages could be successfully labeled and their cycle studied in the host cells. This review aims to put together, although non-extensively, several cell biology studies that recently pushed the elucidation of key mechanisms in phage biology, such as the lysis-lysogeny decision in temperate phages or genome replication and transcription, one step further.