What was the name of the first bacteriophage which genome was sequenced?

Prior to the development of the electron microscope, the size of an object, such as a virus, was estimated by filtration through membranes of various pore sizes. By this criterion, the bacterial virus (bacteriophage) fX174, first described in 1935 (1), and its close relative S13 (2) were classified as much smaller than the T phages that were under investigation in the early days of molecular biology. Moreover, the fact that their genetic material is DNA made these two viruses attractive candidates as front runners in the race to unravel the molecular basis of heredity. The contributions began with the initial characterization of the fX174 DNA as being single stranded, as reported in the first issue of the Journal of Molecular Biology (3). The culmination came when fX174 was the first organism to have its genome subjected completely to DNA sequencing (4), which offered the first direct documentation of the existence of overlapping genes in nature. #DNA #RNA #VIRUS #Bacteriaphage #Genetics #genome #sequence