The properties of bacteriophage Xp12 of Xanthomonas oryzae, isolated from the water in a paddy field in Taiwan and found to contain 5-methylcytosine instead of cytosine, were studied. Phage preparations with high purity were obtained by a procedure involving differential centrifugation and density gradient centrifugation in sucrose solution. Electron microscopic studies revealed that this phage had a head of elliptical hexagonal outline which measured 76 × 55 mμ and a tail of 6 × 133 mμ. Phage Xp12 differed both morphologically and serologically from phages Xp10, Xp20, and Xf. The temperature of thermal inactivation for Xp12 was 66 °C. One step growth studies showed that the latent period for Xp12 was 140 minutes and the burst size was 35. According to the base ratio and composition of Xp12 nucleic acid, it was characteristically a highly ordered double-stranded deoxyribonucleic acid.
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Kuo et al. (1968) studied this question.