A bacterium that has been adsorbed and consequently infected by only a single phage.
Typically when describing a single infection one disregards whether the bacterium being infected is or is not a lysogen and this is because it is assumed that the singly infecting phage and lysogen will only minimally interact. Indeed, the use of this term can be particularly to distinguish infections that are initiated by multiple phages of the same type versus only a single phage rather than to distinguish between bacteria that have been infected by a single phage type versus more than one phage type. Contrast multiple infection.
The use of this term is often operational, specifying conditions in which infection is likely but not multiple infection. This is the definition from Adams (1959, InterScience, p. 442): "Multiplicity of infection considerably less than one, so that most of the infected bacteria in a culture are infected with only one phage particle."
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