Killing of 32P‐Labelled Single‐Stranded‐RNA Bacteriophage MS2

The killing of highly 32P-labelled bacteriophage MS2 by transmutation was studied. The efficiency of killing found was 0.60 ± 0.08. This value is significantly lower than the value expected for a single-stranded bacteriophage. These results can be interpreted by assuming either that the MS2 RNA is replicated with the breaks caused by radiophosphorus decay, or that the breaks are repaired before replication.