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Polyphage
: ''For the dietary behaviour term, see polyphagy.'' Polyphage are genomic Oligomer, multimers of bacteriophage in which multiple viral particles are all encapsulated, one after the other, within the same set of coat proteins. This phenomenon is characteristic of filamentous phage. References Bacteriophages {{virus-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bacteriophage
A bacteriophage (), also known informally as a ''phage'' (), is a duplodnaviria virus that infects and replicates within bacteria and archaea. The term was derived from "bacteria" and the Greek φαγεῖν ('), meaning "to devour". Bacteriophages are composed of proteins that encapsulate a DNA or RNA genome, and may have structures that are either simple or elaborate. Their genomes may encode as few as four genes (e.g. MS2) and as many as hundreds of genes. Phages replicate within the bacterium following the injection of their genome into its cytoplasm. Bacteriophages are among the most common and diverse entities in the biosphere. Bacteriophages are ubiquitous viruses, found wherever bacteria exist. It is estimated there are more than 1031 bacteriophages on the planet, more than every other organism on Earth, including bacteria, combined. Viruses are the most abundant biological entity in the water column of the world's oceans, and the second largest component o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polyphagy
Feeding is the process by which organisms, typically animals, obtain food. Terminology often uses either the suffixes -vore, -vory, or -vorous from Latin ''vorare'', meaning "to devour", or -phage, -phagy, or -phagous from Greek φαγεῖν (), meaning "to eat". Evolutionary history The evolution of feeding is varied with some feeding strategies evolving several times in independent lineages. In terrestrial vertebrates, the earliest forms were large amphibious piscivores 400 million years ago. While amphibians continued to feed on fish and later insects, reptiles began exploring two new food types, other tetrapods (carnivory), and later, plants (herbivory). Carnivory was a natural transition from insectivory for medium and large tetrapods, requiring minimal adaptation (in contrast, a complex set of adaptations was necessary for feeding on highly fibrous plant materials). Evolutionary adaptations The specialization of organisms towards specific food sources is one of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oligomer
In chemistry and biochemistry, an oligomer () is a molecule that consists of a few repeating units which could be derived, actually or conceptually, from smaller molecules, monomers.Quote: ''Oligomer molecule: A molecule of intermediate relative molecular mass, the structure of which essentially comprises a small plurality of units derived, actually or conceptually, from molecules of lower relative molecular mass.'' The name is composed of Greek elements '' oligo-'', "a few" and '' -mer'', "parts". An adjective form is ''oligomeric''. The oligomer concept is contrasted to that of a polymer, which is usually understood to have a large number of units, possibly thousands or millions. However, there is no sharp distinction between these two concepts. One proposed criterion is whether the molecule's properties vary significantly with the removal of one or a few of the units. An oligomer with a specific number of units is referred to by the Greek prefix denoting that number, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Filamentous Phage
Filamentous bacteriophage is a family of viruses (''Inoviridae'') that infect bacteria. The phages are named for their filamentous shape, a worm-like chain (long, thin and flexible, reminiscent of a length of cooked spaghetti), about 6 nm in diameter and about 1000-2000 nm long. The coat of the virion comprises five types of viral protein, which are located during phage assembly in the inner membrane of the host bacteria, and are added to the nascent virion as it extrudes through the membrane. The simplicity of this family makes it an attractive model system to study fundamental aspects of molecular biology, and it has also proven useful as a tool in immunology and nanotechnology. Characteristics Filamentous bacteriophages are among the simplest living organisms known, with far fewer genes than the classical tailed bacteriophages studied by the phage group. The family contains 29 defined species, divided between 23 genera. However, mining of genomic and metagenomic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
