A study of five bacteriophages of theMyoviridae family which replicate on different gram-positive bacteria

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Abstract
A comparative study is reported on five phages of theMyoviridae family which propagate onBacillus subtilis, B. thuringiensis, Enterococcus sp.,Lactobacillus plantarum, orStaphylococcus aureus. The phages are morphologically identical and characterized by isometric heads with conspicuous capsomers and by contractile tails with complex base plates. The phages show similar protein profiles, but vary considerably in burst size. Phage DNAs are about 95–166kb in size and are unrelated by DNA-DNA hybridization and restriction endonuclease analysis. Therefore the phages are unrelated at species level. Implications of these data for our understanding of the development of phage species are discussed.