Acquisition of a fourth genomic segment in bacteriophage phi 6, a bacteriophage with a genome of three segments of dsRNA.

Bacteriophage phi 6 has a genome of three segments of double-stranded RNA enclosed in a polyhedral procapsid. Packaging of individual segments is dependent upon unique packaging sequences near the 5' ends of the segments. We have prepared deletions in segments L and M that decrease their size by half. Phages with these deletions can be propagated on host strains carrying plasmids with complementing genes. The deletion segments are present in two copies per virion. Phage carrying a deletion segment can acquire the transcript of the complementing plasmid if the latter has a packaging sequence. If the packaging sequence is homologous to that of the deletion segment, acquisition occurs at high frequency. If it is heterologous, then recombination exchanges the heterologous packaging sequence for a homologous one or it attaches the transcript to one of the other genomic segments.