As employed by Doermann (1948), defined equivalently to the more accurate, secondary adsorption.
As defined by Payne and colleagues (2000; 2001), infections initiated by the burst products associated with primary infections (that is, initially/previously infected bacteria).
With regard to Doermann's definition, it is now understood that superinfection exclusion can interfere with the infection of bacteria that are already phage infected meaning that secondary adsorptions are not necessarily also secondary infections. Thus it is preferable to use the term secondary adsorption to that of secondary infection for this usage.
The concept of secondary infection was employed by Doermann to describe the mechanism of T-even phage lysis inhibition phenomenon where an extended latent period is induced by secondary "infection" of an already phage-infected bacterium (though in reality it is secondary adsorption since superinfection exclusion blocks the infection by these secondarily adsorbing phages).
For more on this topic, see Wikipedia, Google, and PubMed. Contact web master. Return to terms.
