These results were quite surprising because the viralhost interaction is viewed to be quite specific. However,recent findings on the host range of marine Myoviridaeindicates that some phages can be quite broad host range (Wichels et al., 1998). Therefore, broad host range transduction may be an important mechanism of horizontal transfer in the marine environment. Supporting this concept were other findings of Chiura et al. (1998) using VLP’s that were produced by natural communities of geothermal hot spring bacteria. These VLP’s could transduce E. coli to prototrophy, with an average transfer frequency of 10-6/
VLP. VLP’s were purified from natural populations without cultivation and these also caused transfer to prototrophy. The mechanism of transfer to prototrophy was not known but believed to involve simple complementation of the mutant. Collectively these results indicate that gene transfer by transduction can occur across wide taxonomic boundaries in the marine and hot spring environments.