Bacteriophage Ecology Group

Bacteriophage Ecology Group Bacteriophage Ecology Group

Superinfection

Phage infection of an already phage-infected bacterium, including when that preexisting phage infection is lysogenic and particularly when a delay exists between primary and secondary adsorption.

 CAUTION: POTENTIALLY AMBIGUOUS TERM 

The original infection may be productive, reductive, or even "destructive". See also superinfection immunity and superinfection exclusion.

Note that many authors have used the term superinfection as a synonym for what here I describe instead as secondary adsorption. Inconsistent with that perspective is the definition from Adams (1959), p. 442): "Reinfection of bacteria already infected some minutes before, or reinfection of lysogenic bacteria." Similarly, from The Bacteriophage Lambda (1971) (p. 777): "Reinfection by a phage of a cell that carries a prophage, or is otherwise already infected." That is, it would be necessary to equate adsorption with infection to describe superinfection in terms that are equivalent to the defintiion of secondary adsorption.

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