Bacteriophage lambda is a classic system for the study of cellular decision making. Both experiments and mathematical models have demonstrated the importance of viral concentration in the lysis-lysogeny decision outcome in lambda phage. However, a recent experimental study using single cell and single phage resolution reported that cells with the same viral concentrations but different numbers ...

AIMS Bacteriophage vectors have potential as gene transfer and vaccine delivery vectors because of their low cost, safety and physical stability. However, little is known concerning phage-mediated gene transfer in mammalian hosts. We therefore performed experiments to examine phage-mediated gene transfer in vivo. METHODS AND RESULTS Mice were inoculated with recombinant lambda phage containin...

The immunochemical properties of type 5 M protein antigens that were expressed in Escherichia coli K-12 by recombinant lambda bacteriophages isolated from a gene bank of serotype 5 Streptococcus pyogenes have been analyzed in detail. M proteins from partially purified bacteriophage lysates displayed precipitin lines of identity with a purified peptic extract of type 5 M protein (pep M5) in immu...

Bacteriophage lambda with mutations in genes that control prohead assembly and other head precursors cannot mature their DNA. In this paper we present evidence that the failure of these phage mutants to mature DNA is a reflection of a mechanism that modulates terminase nicking activity during normal phage development. We have constructed plasmids that contain the lambda-cohesive end site (cos) ...

Experiments using phage lambda provided early insights into important molecular mechanisms, including genetic recombination and the control of gene expression. Before recombinant DNA technology, the use of lambda, most particularly lambda transducing phages, illustrated the importance of cloning bacterial genes, already providing some insight into how to use cloned genes to advantage. Subsequen...