Marine unicellular cyanobacteria of the genera Synechococcus and Prochlorococcus are important primary producers in the world’s oceans. Their coexistence with high abundances of cyanophages is likely due to effective mechanisms of resistance.

This project will address the central question of how the phage transcriptional program of marine T4-like cyanophages is regulated in sensitive cyanobacteria and to elucidate the mechanisms of defence that function at the transcriptional level in resistant cyanobacteria.

This study will provide fundamental information on the novel means through which the marine T4-like cyanophages regulate their transcriptional program relative to that in the T4 archetype. Furthermore, this will lay the groundwork for the discovery of new anti-viral defence systems that function at the transcriptional level. As such this research program will open up new horizons in the understanding of host-virus interactions in this ecologically important group of organisms.