Question

You isolate a bacteriophage that can replicate in

e. coli. through chemical analyses you determine that the only nucleic acid present is rna. you isolate the rna and put it in a test tube with all of the enzymes, amino acids, and rnas necessary for translation. the rna is translated directly, without being copied into a complementary strand first, and new infectious virions are made and released. what does this tell you about the bacteriophage?

Answer 1

This means that the RNA genome is of the plus sense and RNA replicate is present in the viral capsid. A bacteriophage is a virus that infects and replicates within Bacteria and Archaea. Like all viruses phages are simple organisms that consist of a core of genetic material surrounded by a protein capsid. The nucleic acid may be either DNA or RNA and may be double-stranded or single stranded.