Native marine bacteriophages

Abstract

Isolation and cultivation of marine bacteriophages have shown that they are ubiquitous in seawater, and direct counting has shown that the total numbers of viruses frequently exceed the bacterial concentration by a factor of 10. About 150 different isolates of phages from marine environments have been characterized in the literature reviewed in the present report. Knoblike projections on phage heads seem to be a morphological property more common in marine phages than among phages from other sources. The cultured phages were generally much larger than the majority of viruses observed by direct transmission electron microscopy of seawater samples, indicating that culturing methods are not providing unbiased samples of environmental viruses. Cultured marine viruses frequently are more sensitive to organic solvents than the more intensively studied phages from other sources. Burst sizes from recent in situ studies are 50% lower than the average from culture studies. Phages in the marine environment may have half lives lasting less than a day, with consequent high turnover. Host ranges varies, and cross species host ranges have not been demonstrated. More information and further development of methods are needed, both from culture and from in situ studies.