THE MECHANISM OF GENETIC RECOMBINATION IN ESCHERICHIA COLI

Abstract

The inclusion in a symposium on viruses of a paper devoted exclusively to the problems of sexuality in bacteria may appear to some of you to be inapt. There is, in fact, a two-fold justification for this inclusion. Firstly, the genetic system of Escherichia coli is the only tool at present available for the genetic analysis of the relationship of provirus to the cell and of its inheritance by progeny; but the anomalies hitherto apparent in the attempt to apply the concepts of classical genetics to this system have limited its usefulness. Secondly, there is now evidence that a transmissible agent, displaying many unique attributes but which can properly be termed a virus within the existing rather loose connotation of that word, plays a dominant role in the mechanism of genetic transfer in E. coli, so that in this organism may be found yet another focal point of bacterial genetics...