Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) have confirmed that bacteria-killing viruses called bacteriophages deploy a sneaky tactic when targeting their hosts: They use a standard genetic code when invading bacteria, then switch to an alternate code at later stages of infection.
Their study provides crucial information on the life cycle of phages. It could be a key step toward the development of new technologies such as therapeutics targeting human pathogens or of methods to control phage-bacterial interactions in applications ranging from plant production to carbon sequestration.