Christopher R. T. Hillyar

Bacteriophage λ (lambda) infects Escherichia coli and induces a dramatically increased rate and altered profile of genetic recombination as part of the cycle of infection. The genetic recombination processes augment the host-encoded recombination proteins with phage-encoded recombination proteins, promoting particular recombination pathways. This review characterizes the protein machinery involved in the most important processes underlying λ-mediated genetic recombination.