Defective deoxyribonucleic acid replication of T4rII bacteriophage in lambda-lysogenic host cells.

Sedimentation of the replicative deoxyribonucleic acid through alkaline sucrose gradients showed that rII single chains reached the half-mature size at a time when wild-type molecules formed long chains (dimers and trimers of genome size). Long rII single chains could be observed on substitution of tris(hydroxymethyl)aminomethane buffer for Na(+)K(+) phosphate in the growth medium.