A measure of the duration of a phage infection, particularly a lytic infection.
Latent periods begin with virion attachment, nucleic acid translocation into the bacterial cytoplasm, or with prophage induction; span the eclipse and post-eclipse or maturation periods; and, for lytic phages, end with bacterial lysis. They typically are determined using single-step growth experiments though lysis profiles can also be employed.
Strictly, latent period can be used synonymously with constant period. For lytic cycles beginning with adsorption the latent period basically overlaps infection, and also for lytic phages the latent period is equivalent to the duration of a productive infection. This is the definition from Adams (1959, InterScience, p. 440): "This is the definition from Adams (1959, InterScience, p. 439) for simply "Burst": "Yield of phage liberated by spontaneous lysis of an infected bacterium. This may be measured directly for isolated bacteria in single burst experiments, or as an average burst size in one-step growth experiments. Also the act of liberation."Elapsed time between infection or induction and lysis of cells in one-step growth. Latent periods of individual cells vary over a range called the rise period. When reported without qualification, latent period means minimum latent period."
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