T4 BACTERIOPHAGE AS A MODEL ORGANISM

In order to study many of the essential processes of life, T4 bacteriophage has become a "model organism" due to many reasons. It’s easy to maintain and breed T4 bacteriophage in a laboratory. It is presently the most vastly used organism in molecular genetics due to its rapid adsorption, penetration, DNA replication, formation of new particles, enzyme synthesis and completed genomic sequence. T4 bacteriophage play key role in molecular biology field in order to identify the chemical nature of the gene, discovering genes code for proteins, deciphering how the genetic code is read and elucidating the mechanism of DNA replication. The reason of attraction towards T4 bacteriophage as therapeutic agent is that they are lethal and highly specific for targeted bacteria while on the other hand safe for humans. T4 bacteriophages are considered as natural antimicrobial agents to fight against Escherichia coli infections in animals and humans. Moreover research work on Escherichia coli and its T4 bacteriophages played an important part in the revolution of molecular biology. Endolysin or lysins of T4 bacteriophage are used as antimicrobial agents and T4 bacteriophage is used as a particle to deliver vaccine. T4 bacteriophage also play major role in detecting the pathogen.