Temperate Phages

Dear Colleagues,

Bacteriophages (phages) are viruses that infect only prokaryotes. They are considered the most ubiquitous biological entity on earth. Their interaction with prokaryotic hosts affects the composition and balanced diversity of microbiomes in human and animal organs, like the gut, thereby influencing the wellbeing of the macrohosts. They play a role in balancing global ecosystems, such as oceans.

Temperate phages play a pivotal role through their ability to regulate their host’s behavior. They drive the evolution of members of bacterial communities on both the individual and population levels by supporting their hosts’ adaptation to otherwise non-permissive environments, promoting bacterial fitness, including through high mutator status, broadening of metabolic repertoires, enhancing or even conferring the virulence traits of pathogens via horizontal gene transfer, promoting biofilm formation, and regulating sporulation and nitrogen fixation, among other features, altogether described as the “lysogenic conversion” of bacteria.

Moreover, temperate phages have been shown to serve as regulatory switches when integrated into bacterial genes and following restoration of their function after exact excision, a phenomenon known as “active lysogeny”.

While researchers have already been fascinated by temperate bacteriophages for decades, we have only recently become aware of the dimensions of their influence on the evolution of life on our planet. While knowledge on the interaction of phages with bacteria is rapidly increasing, publications on archaea and their phages looks rather scarce.

The current Special Issue aims to update the common knowledge on the role and function of temperate phages in any ecosystem under investigation. Contributions from all fields of research on this topic are highly welcome.

Dr. Wolfgang Beyer
Prof. h.c. Dr. rer. nat. Karin Moelling
Guest Editor

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