Bacteriophage f2

Bacteriophage f2 is an icosahedral, positive-sense single-stranded RNA virus that infects the bacterium Escherichia coli. It is closely related to bacteriophage MS2 and assigned to the same species.

History

f2 was the first RNA-containing bacteriophage to be isolated, reported in 1961. Tim Loeb and Norton Zinder identified two phages in filtered samples of raw New York City sewage that grew on male but not on female E. coli. The first phage f1, produced cloudy plaques, while the second phage, f2, produced clear plaques.