ausblenden:
Schlagwörter:
Replication Origin, Phage Particle, Complementary Strand, Filamentous Phage, Viral Strand
Zusammenfassung:
Filamentous bacteriophages (fd, M13, f1) contain single-stranded circular DNA of about 6400 bases (1). They penetrate the host cell via pili induced by the F-episome of an Escherichia coli cell. During the penetration process their single-stranded genome is converted into double-stranded DNA which is the main viral component in the first minutes after infection. Later in the life cycle, viral single strands are formed and complexed with gene 5 protein. They are assembled in the host membrane into phage particles, which penetrate the cell wall without severe damage of the host. Filamentous phages are quite flexible on the size of the DNA to be packaged. They spontaneously generate miniphages of about 1 kb (2, 3), but they can also comprise artificial DNA sequences up to a length of 15 kb, if the phage packaging signal is provided (4).
