Els Bacteriòfags com a eina en la microbiologia ambiental

Authors

  • Joan Jofre i Torroella

Abstract

It is described how information on bacteriophages accumulated during the early studies of molecular genetics are now applied for purposes without any relationship with the objectives pursued in those first studies. It is portrayed how some bacteriophages that infect bacteria that live in the gut are used for different purposes related to water quality determination. In one side, the bacteriophages infecting Escherichia coli through the cell wall (somatic coliphages; the bacteriophages infecting E. coli through the sexual pili (F-specific RNA bacteriophages) and bacteriophages infecting Bacteroides spp. are used as indicators of human viruses in water. In the other side, bacteriophages infecting different strains of Bacteroides are being proved to be very useful tools for faecal source tracking.

Published

2008-11-06