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J Bacteriol. 1965 October; 90(4): 928-935
Copyright © 1965 American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Effect of 5-Fluorouracil on the Growth of Bacteriophage R17

The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

ABSTRACT

GRAHAM, A. F. (The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology, Philadelphia, Pa.), AND CLARE KIRK. Effect of 5-fluorouracil on the growth of bacteriophage R17. J. Bacteriol. 90:928–935. 1965.—When added to Escherichia coli within 2 min after phage R17, 5-fluorouracil (FU), at a concentration of 10^–4M, completely inhibited the synthesis of infectious ribonucleic acid (RNA) and phage. If the addition of FU was made later than 5 min after infection, infectious RNA synthesis was blocked but infectious phage was still formed; the infectious RNA made before the addition of FU continued to be incorporated into mature phage. These properties of the inhibitor were used to determine the kinetics of phage RNA synthesis and the size of the phage precursor RNA pool. At a concentration of 2.2 x 10^–5M FU, the yield of phage was reduced to 15% of that in an uninhibited control, 28% of the phage RNA uracil was replaced with FU, and the specific infectivity of the phage was unaltered.