Integrative Recombination of Bacteriophage : In Vitro Study of the Intermolecular Reaction

The integrative recombination of bacteriophage λ is the best-characterized recombination reaction known. The reaction has been extensively studied through genetic analysis (Gottesman and Weisberg 1971; Weisberg et al. 1977). More recently, an in vitro system has been developed and used to obtain further biochemical and molecular biological information which was difficult to obtain through in vivo studies (Nash, 1977). We now also know the structure of the sites on DNA involved in the reaction (attachment sites; attP is the attachment site on the phage genome and attB is that on the host bacterial chromosome) down to the level of base sequence (Landy and Ross 1977).