Mu phage

Mu phage
Virus classification
Group:	Group I (dsDNA)
Order:	Caudovirales
Family:	Myoviridae
Genus:	Mu-like viruses
Species:	Mu Phage

Bacteriophage Mu or phage Mu is a temperate bacteriophage, a type of virus that infects bacteria.

Morphology

It has an icosahedral head, a contractile tail and 6 tail fibres.^[1]

Replication

It uses DNA-based transposition to integrate its genome into the genome of the host cell that it is infecting. It can then use transposition to initiate its viral DNA replication. Once the viral DNA is inserted into the bacteria, the Mu transposase protein/enzyme in the cell recognises the recombination sites at the ends of the viral DNA (gix-L and gix-R sites) and binds to them, allowing the process of replicating the viral DNA or embedding it into the host genome.^[2]

References

1. ^ Birge, E (2000). Bacterial and bacteriophage genetics (4th ed.). Springer. ISBN 0387987304. 
2. ^ Alberts B, Johnson A, Lewis J, Raff M, Roberts K, Walter P (2002). Molecular Biology of the Cell (4th ed. ed.). Garland. ISBN 0815332181. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/bv.fcgi?rid=mboc4.TOC&depth=2. 

External links

• Viralzone: mu-like viruses