Perhaps the most compelling and unique evidence for
transduction comes from the work of Chiura and coworkers
(1997, 1998). These investigators observed VLP (viruslike particle) production in five marine bacterial cultures,
with the ratio of viruses to host approximately 1.0. These
VLP’s could transfer amino acid prototrophy to an
auxotrophic E. coli strain. The viruses were lethal to the E.
coli. The gene transfer frequency was between 2.6 x 10-3
to 3.58 x 10-5 per VLP. These results suggested that some
type of generalized transduction was occurring, and that
such gene transfer could occur using a very broad host
range of donors. Unfortunately, because there were no
probes available for the loci transferred, it was not possible
to verify gene acquisition by probing.
These results were quite surprising b