Abstract

The Bacteria: A Treatise on Structure and Function, Volume V: Heredity explores the role of bacterial genetics in heredity. The book includes chapters on genetic fine structure, genetic replication, and gene-enzyme relationships, along with gene transduction, bacterial episomes, and genetic recombination.
This volume is organized into 10 chapters and begins with an overview of conjugation as a mechanism of genetic exchange in bacterial species such as Escherichia coli, Salmonella typhosa, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Vibrio cholera, and Serratia marcescens. The book then discusses transduction, its uses and evolutionary implications, and the nature of the transducing particle as well as the transduction of galactose genes by bacteriophage lambda. The reader is also introduced to transformation and its use in genetic analysis, along with bacterial episomes and genetic transfer; genetic recombination and other genetic phenomena in streptomycetes; and DNA replication. The book concludes by explaining how bacteria should be defined from a biological standpoint.
This book is a valuable source of information for geneticists, biochemists, biologists, and research workers involved in the biological sciences.