Search research articles

ABOUT JoVE

Overview Leadership Blog JoVE Help Center

AUTHORS

Publishing Process Editorial Board Scope & Policies Peer Review FAQ Submit

LIBRARIANS

Testimonials Subscriptions Access Resources Library Advisory Board FAQ

RESEARCH

JoVE Journal Methods Collections JoVE Encyclopedia of Experiments Archive

EDUCATION

JoVE Core JoVE Business JoVE Science Education JoVE Lab Manual Faculty Resource Center Faculty Site

Terms & Conditions of Use

Related Concept Videos

Lysogenic Cycle of Bacteriophages

Lysogenic Cycle of Bacteriophages

In contrast to the lytic cycle, phages infecting bacteria via the lysogenic cycle do not immediately kill their host cell. Instead, they combine their genome with the host genome, allowing the bacteria to replicate the phage DNA along with the bacterial genome. The incorporated copy of the phage genome is called the prophage. Some prophages can re-activate and enter the lytic cycle. This often occurs in response to a perturbation, such as DNA damage, but can also transpire in the absence of...

Lytic Cycle of Bacteriophages

Lytic Cycle of Bacteriophages

Bacteriophages, also known as phages, are specialized viruses that infect bacteria. A key characteristic of phages is their distinctive “head-tail” morphology. A phage begins the infection process (i.e., lytic cycle) by attaching to the outside of a bacterial cell. Attachment is accomplished via proteins in the phage tail that bind to specific receptor proteins on the outer surface of the bacterium. The tail injects the phage’s DNA genome into the bacterial cytoplasm. In the...

Viral Recombination

Viral Recombination

Cells are sometimes infected by more than one virus at once. When two viruses disassemble to expose their genomes for replication in the same cell, similar regions of their genomes can pair together and exchange sequences in a process called recombination. Alternatively, viruses with segmented genomes can swap segments in a process called reassortment.

Conservative Site-specific Recombination and Phase Variation

Conservative Site-specific Recombination and Phase Variation

Because the DNA segments are cut and reorganized in a direction-specific manner, site-specific recombination has emerged as an efficient genetic engineering technique. Flippase and Cyclization recombinases or Flp and Cre, respectively, are two members of the tyrosine recombinase family derived from bacteriophages, that are used to mediate site-specific DNA insertions, deletions, and targeted expression of proteins in mammalian cell lines.
The recognition sites for Cre recombinase called LoxP...

CRISPR and crRNAs

CRISPR and crRNAs

Bacteria and archaea are susceptible to viral infections just like eukaryotes; therefore, they have developed a unique adaptive immune system to protect themselves. Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats and CRISPR-associated proteins (CRISPR-Cas) are present in more than 45% of known bacteria and 90% of known archaea.
The CRISPR-Cas system stores a copy of foreign DNA in the host genome and uses it to identify the foreign DNA upon reinfection. CRISPR-Cas has three different...

Antibiotic Selection

Antibiotic Selection

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by

Same author

SOS-mediated prophage induction constrains resistance evolution to DNA-damaging antibiotics.

bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology·2026

Same author

Variation and selection at predicted G-quadruplexes across the human pangenome.

bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology·2026

Same author

Within-host pathogen population diversity predicts treatment response in Tuberculosis.

medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences·2026

Same author

Associations between hematologic dynamics during pregnancy and obstetric complications: A retrospective observational study.

PLoS medicine·2026

Same author

Community-led standards for global wastewater-based infectious disease surveillance.

PLOS global public health·2026

Same author

Gene conversion is a key driver of diversity hotspots in <i>M. tuberculosis</i> antigens and virulence-associated loci.

bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology·2026

Same journal

Large-scale discovery and annotation of substructure patterns in mass spectrometry profiles.

Nature communications·2026

Same journal

Salmonella SopB suppresses post-transcriptionally regulated cytokine release to reduce early tissue inflammation and delay disease progression.

Nature communications·2026

Same journal

A human-specific microRNA controls the timing of excitatory synaptogenesis.

Nature communications·2026

Same journal

An HMA-like integrated domain in the wheat tandem kinase WTK4 recognises an RNase-like pathogen effector.

Nature communications·2026

Same journal

Learning regularities in noise engages both neural predictive activity and representational changes.

Nature communications·2026

Same journal

The H3K4 methyltransferase KMT2D is an essential cofactor for GATA1 at erythroid gene enhancers.

Nature communications·2026

See all related articles

Search research articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 28, 2025

High-Resolution Comparison of Bacterial Conjugation Frequencies

High-Resolution Comparison of Bacterial Conjugation Frequencies

Published on: January 10, 2019

Diverse and abundant phages exploit conjugative plasmids.

Natalia Quinones-Olvera^1,2,3, Siân V Owen^4,5,6, Lucy M McCully^1,2,3

¹Department of Biomedical Informatics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, 02115, USA.

Nature Communications

|April 12, 2024

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

New plasmid-dependent phages targeting IncP and IncF plasmids are common in wastewater. These phages, mostly non-canonical types like tectiviruses, are crucial for understanding bacterial evolution and horizontal gene transfer.

More Related Videos

Detection of Horizontal Gene Transfer Mediated by Natural Conjugative Plasmids in E. coli

Detection of Horizontal Gene Transfer Mediated by Natural Conjugative Plasmids in E. coli

Published on: March 24, 2023

Conjugative Mating Assays for Sequence-specific Analysis of Transfer Proteins Involved in Bacterial Conjugation

Conjugative Mating Assays for Sequence-specific Analysis of Transfer Proteins Involved in Bacterial Conjugation

Published on: January 4, 2017

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Jun 28, 2025

High-Resolution Comparison of Bacterial Conjugation Frequencies

High-Resolution Comparison of Bacterial Conjugation Frequencies

Published on: January 10, 2019

Detection of Horizontal Gene Transfer Mediated by Natural Conjugative Plasmids in E. coli

Detection of Horizontal Gene Transfer Mediated by Natural Conjugative Plasmids in E. coli

Published on: March 24, 2023

Conjugative Mating Assays for Sequence-specific Analysis of Transfer Proteins Involved in Bacterial Conjugation

Conjugative Mating Assays for Sequence-specific Analysis of Transfer Proteins Involved in Bacterial Conjugation

Published on: January 4, 2017

Area of Science:

Microbiology
Virology
Evolutionary Biology

Background:

Bacteriophages (phages) are viruses that infect bacteria, influencing bacterial evolution through cell surface interactions.
Most phages use bacterial chromosomal structures as receptors, but plasmid-dependent phages utilize plasmid-encoded proteins, linking their host range to plasmid mobility.
Characterization of plasmid-dependent phages is limited, despite their biotechnological potential and unique biology.

Purpose of the Study:

To systematically discover and characterize novel plasmid-dependent phages targeting IncP and IncF plasmids.
To investigate the genetic diversity and abundance of these phages in environmental samples.
To understand the evolutionary role of plasmid-dependent phages in constraining horizontal gene transfer.

Main Methods:

Utilized a targeted discovery platform to isolate phages from wastewater samples.
Employed genomic and phylogenetic analyses to characterize the isolated phages.
Investigated phage-host interactions and receptor usage, including the role of phage holin proteins.

Main Results:

Identified plasmid-dependent phages targeting IncP and IncF plasmids as common and abundant in wastewater.
Discovered that most isolated phages (65/66) were non-canonical types, including tectiviruses, ssDNA filamentous phages, and ssRNA phages.
Demonstrated significant host range variation in plasmid-dependent tectiviruses linked to holin protein differences, and found these phages are often missed in metaviromic analyses.

Conclusions:

Plasmid-dependent phages are a largely unexplored and genetically diverse group, prevalent in wastewater environments.
Culture-based phage discovery remains essential, as many plasmid-dependent phages, particularly tectiviruses, are not detected by current metaviromic methods.
These phages play a significant, under-appreciated role in regulating horizontal gene transfer mediated by conjugative plasmids.