A phage life cycle over the entirety of which the phage exists as a prophage.
Lysogenic cycles begin with phage reduction to a prophage and end – that is, have completed one cycle – with completion of prophage replication. Lysogenic cycles also can be terminated through the process of induction or, indeed, through prophage curing.
To distinguish the idea of lysogenic infection from that of lysogenic cycle, one can envisage the latter as being a component of the former. That is, a lysogen exists as a bacterium that is in association with a phage which is displaying a lysogenic infection. During that lysogenic infection the bacterium goes through numerous replicative cycles and the prophage simultaneously displays numerous lysognic cycles. An infection in other words is something that occurs upon phage genome entrance into a bacterium's cytoplasm whereas a cycle is a phenomenon that is periodic. Lysogenic infections thus tend to involve numerous lysognic cycles and lysogenic cycles therefore serve as a component of lysogenic infections.
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