phages for extremophiles?
Your_Name at NIH.GOV
Fri Apr 4 10:26:26 EST 1997
There seems to be a revival in the study of bacteria in extreme or unusual
environments; boiling water, salt lakes, solid rock and Martian meteorites
to name a few. Are there also bacteriophages associated with these
extremophiles? Let's call the phages, extremophages.
The archaea are presumably living in complex ecosystems, undergoing
mutations, and acquiring new and exogenous DNA through the usual
mechanisms. It doesn't seem unreasonable to suppose that one of those
mechanisms might involve phages. This isn't my field so I don't know if
asking about phages among the archaea is reasonable. Is it?
Edward McSweegan, Ph.D.
National Institutes of Health
Bethesda, MD, USA
em8p at nih.gov
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