Winogradskii Institute of Microbiology, Federal Research Center of Biotechnology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 117312, Russia.
Faculty of Biology, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, 119991, Russia.
Biochemistry (Mosc). 2020 Sep;85(9):1093-1010. doi: 10.1134/S0006297920090096.
The viruses of bacteria - bacteriophages - were discovered 20 years after the discovery of viruses. However, this was mainly the bacteriophage research that, after the first 40 years, yielded the modern concept of the virus and to large extent formed the grounds of the emerging molecular genetics and molecular biology. Many specific aspects of the bacteriophage research history have been addressed in the existing publications. The integral outline of the events that led to the formation of the key concepts of modern virology is presented in this review. This includes the opposition of F. d'Herelle and J. Bordet viewpoints over the nature of the bacteriophage, the history of lysogeny discovery and of determination of the mechanisms of underlying this phenomenon, the work of the Phage group led by M. Delbruck in USA, the development of the genetic analysis of bacteriophages and other research that eventually led to emergence of the concept of the virus (bacteriophage) as a transmissive genetic program. The review also covers a brief history of early applications of the bacteriophages such as phage therapy and phage typing.
细菌病毒 - 噬菌体 - 在发现病毒 20 年后被发现。然而，主要是噬菌体研究在最初的 40 年后产生了现代病毒概念，并在很大程度上形成了新兴的分子遗传学和分子生物学的基础。噬菌体研究历史的许多具体方面已经在现有出版物中得到了探讨。本综述介绍了导致现代病毒学关键概念形成的事件的整体概述。这包括 F. d'Herelle 和 J. Bordet 对噬菌体性质的观点的对立，溶原性发现的历史以及确定这一现象背后机制的历史，M. Delbruck 在美国领导的噬菌体小组的工作，噬菌体的遗传分析的发展以及其他最终导致病毒（噬菌体）作为传染性遗传程序的概念出现的研究。该综述还涵盖了噬菌体早期应用的简要历史，如噬菌体治疗和噬菌体分型。
