Bacteriophage Ecology Group

Bacteriophage Ecology Group Bacteriophage Ecology Group

Secondary Adsorption

Attachment (adsorption) of a phage to an already phage-infected bacterium (one that has been primary adsorbed and infected).

Secondary adsorption may or may not lead to superinfection, through strictly a secondary adsorption that is followed by superinfection is one route towards coinfection.

Single-step growth experiments are specifically designed to limit secondary adsorption both so that infective centers are not lost (a bacterium adsorbed by one or more phage will still produce, prior to its lysis, only a single plaque) and so that secondary adsorption does not modify the characteristics of an infection.

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