Figure 1.

Significance of bacteriophages in regulating environment. In this figure, (A) depicts infection and insertion phage DNA into the host cell. After the phage infection, the host cell may get converted into a virocell (B), containing vAMGs that leading to an altered regulation or novel functions in bacterial host cell. The phage infection leading to lytic cycle (C) results into lysing host cell hence, controlling cell population. Infected cell leading to a lysogeny cycle (D) may contain phage genome into the bacterial genome, which can lead to an increased microbial diversity because of horizontal gene transfers- HGT (E). Also, the dead debris of bacteria as a result of phage lysis enters the food-web and biogeochemical cycles (F), as a result the nutrients get re-circulated in the ecosystem.