Bacteriophage Ecology Group

Bacteriophage Ecology Group Bacteriophage Ecology Group

Chronic Infection

 

Productive infections in which virions are released in a manner that does not terminate the individual cell infection nor kill the infected cell.

Chronic infections, resulting in chronic release of phage virions, are not lysogenic infections, though the productive cycle for a small number of temperate phages is chronic rather than lytic.

The majority of phages that infect chronically possess filamentous virions, such as phage M13, which is the darling of phage display technologies. Numerous enveloped animal viruses by contrast are released chronically.

See also the idea of chronic infection more generally, that is, of multicellular organisms.

Loading

For more on this topic, see WikipediaGoogle,  and PubMed. Contact web master.  Return to terms.