It is now well established that viruses are an abundant component of marine ecosystems and they are being increasingly recognised and accepted as important contnbutors to element cycling within the microbial loop. However, some of the key questions regarding the ecological significance of viruses in the marine environment still remain largely unanswered. Thus, particular interest is currently focused on the extent to which lytic production or lysoyeny predominates and the nature of factors in the marine environment, particularly nutrient availability and mult~plicity of .infection (MOI), which might influence the lysisflysogeny 'decision' The present evidence is still insufficient to unambiguously assess the relative ecological significance of lysogeny versus lysis and progress in this area will rely on the development and application of new techniques. This review attempts to collect recent information relating to this central question, focusing particularly on those viruses which infect the bacterioplankton and nano-and picophytoplankton.
Following shotgun cloning of EcoRI fragments of Bacillus subtilis 168 chromosomal DNA in pBR322 a hybrid plasmid, pUL720, was isolated which complements Escherichia coli K12 mutants defective for argA, B, C, D, E, F/I, carA and carB. Restriction analysis revealed that the insert of pUL720 comprises four EcoRI fragments, of sizes 12.0, 6.0, 5.0 and 0.8 kbp. Evidence was obtained from subcloning, Southern blot hybridisation, enzyme stability studies and transformation of B. subtilis arginine auxotrophs that the 12 kbp EcoRI fragment carries all the arg genes. It proved impossible to subclone the intact fragment in isolation in the multicopy vectors pBR322, pBR325 or pACYC184, and although it could be subcloned in the low copy vector pGV1106, propagation of the hybrid rapidly resulted in the selection of stable derivatives carrying, near one end, an insertion of 1 kbp of DNa originating from the E. coli chromosome. These and other stable derivatives resulting from subcloning the 12 kbp EcoRI fragment have lost only the ability to complement for E. coli argC, and it is suggested that sequences located close to the equivalent of argC are involved in destabilising plasmids bearing the 12 kbp fragment in E. coli in a copy number dependent manner.
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