When viruses infect bacteria: Looking in vivo at virus-bacterium associations
Friday, July 1, 2011 - 21:30
in Biology & Nature
Viruses are the most abundant parasites on Earth. Well known viruses, such as the flu virus, attack human hosts, while viruses such as the tobacco mosaic virus infect plant hosts. More common, but less understood, are cases of viruses infecting bacteria known as bacteriophages, or phages. In part, this is due to the difficulty of culturing bacteria and viruses that have been cut off from their usual biological surroundings in a process called in vitro. Researchers have now used a clever technique to look at virus-bacterium interactions in vivo, that is, within an organism's normal state.