Browsing by Author "Restrepo, Marcela"

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    Isolation and characterization of rhizobium leguminosarum phages from western Canadian soils
    (2012) Restrepo, Marcela; Hynes, Michael F.
    Rhizobiophages are bacteriophages that infect members of the Rhizobia, a bacterial group that nodulates and fixes nitrogen inside the nodules of legume plants. Rhizobiophages have been used for phage typing of rhizobial populations and as tools for molecular genetics due to their transduction abilities, but their diversity remains largely uncharacterized. At the start of this study very little was known about Rhizobium leguminosarum rhizobiophages. Isolation of phages from soil samples in Alberta and Saskatchewan was performed. Thirty rhizobiophages were trapped from these soils using strains of R. leguminosarum (3841 or VF39SM) and R. gallicum. Optimal storage conditions, classification based on: host range, TEM and RAPD-PCR, and phage transduction abilities were determined. Two phages were selected for detailed study and genome sequencing: L338C, a Siphoviridae and Pl0VF, a Myoviridae. Finally qPCR was demonstrated to be a viable tool for the detection of Pl0VF in the soil.