How is RNA bacteriophage being used for further discoveries in Microbiology?

Author: Chloe Jeon

Editors: Emily Chen and He-Hanson Xuan

Artist: Jade Li

Did you know that bacteria can be infected? It is ironic that bacteria can infect any living organism, but bacteria itself can be infected by a virus called bacteriophage

There are currently two known RNA bacteriophages found from the mid-1900s: Leviviridae and Cystoviridae. Leviviridae is naturally a spherical shape consisting of single-stranded RNA (ssRNA) phages: one of the tiniest viruses that usually infect gram negative bacteria through adsorption. This family of viruses has been used to model virus evolution, RNA and protein interactions, and translation repression

Cystoviridae is unique as it is a double stranded RNA, and is in a spherical shape with a double capsid structure.

Cystoviridae also primarily targets gramnegative bacteria such as Pseudomonas syringae in plants What makes Cystoviridae more complex than Leviviridae is that Cytosviridae consists of a polymerase complex that controls genome packaging, replication, and transcription. These RNA bacteriophages infect bacteria through the lytic cycle, where the virus replicates itself within the host cell, and through the lysogenic cycle, in which viral genome is inserted into that of the host

Deeper studies on RNA bacteriophages have allowed Scientists to discover gene regulation, proving that the Central Dogma of biology – the model that the production of proteins from DNA