A Morphological Study of Marine Bacteriophages

The authors carried out the isolation of marine bacteriophages from sea water samples collected from the two stations of the Pacific Ocean, off the south of Kyushu, Japan. The authors determined also the morphological character of the phages isolated. The sixteen marine bacteriophage systems were obtained in this study. The host bacteria isolated belong to Vibrio (9 strains), Pseidomanas (4), Flavobacterium (2), and Achromobacter (1). The isolated phages are highly specific to original host. They are virulent phages. The structure of the phage particles varies widely. The great variety is found in tail structure among the isolated phages. They are divided into three morphological groups ; phages with a tail possessing a contractile sheath (4 strains), phages with a long and non-contracting tail (5), and phages with a short tail (7). According to the TIKHONENKO's grouping of phage, the authors suppose that they are phages containing deoxyribonucleic acid. It is difficult to find a morphological property of marine bacteriophages in this experiments. It is sure that they vary widely in their morphology