Mutations induced by the integration of a Mugem2ts prophage can revert at frequencies around 1x10(-6). In these revertant clones, the prophage excised from its original localization is not lost but reintegrated elsewhere in the host genome. One of the most intriguing aspects of this process is that the prophage reintegration is not randomly distributed: there is a strong correlation between the...

A simple three-step procedure for the large scale purification of DNA ligase has been developed. THe source of enzyme is a strain of Escherichia coli with a hybrid lambda prophage constructed in vitro that bears the ligase overproducing gene lop 11 lig+ (Panasenko, S., Cameron, J., Davis, R. W., and Lehman, I. R. (1977) Science 196, 188-189). The procedure yields homogeneous enzyme in approxima...

Host-controlled restriction and modification of TP-1C phage and infectious phage DNA occurs in Bacillus stearothermophilus and is subject to control by TP-8 or TP-12 prophage.

We investigated the characteristics of a lambdoid prophage, nicknamed Lula, contaminating E. coli strains from several sources, that allowed it to spread horizontally in the laboratory environment. We found that new Lula infections are inconspicuous; at the same time, Lula lysogens carry unusually high titers of the phage in their cultures, making them extremely infectious. In addition, Lula pr...

We develop a framework to discuss the stability of epigenetic states as first exit problems in dynamical systems with noise. We consider in particular the stability of the lysogenic state of the lambda prophage. The formalism defines a quantitative measure of robustness of inherited states.

A complete 39,318-bp genome sequence containing 52 coding sequences has been determined for the Bacillus subtilis temperate phage ϕ105. In a lysogen, B. subtilis strain 1L32, the ϕ105 prophage interrupts the radC locus, a part of the competence-induced ComK regulon.