Quantitative study of sensitive and lysogenic bacteria surviving infection of aStaphylococcus by a temperate bacteriophage

Infection of a culture ofStaphylococcus aureus by a phage left more surviving colony-forming, sensitive bacteria than might be expected from the calculation of P_o according to the Poisson distribution. The discrepancy could at least partly be explained by the heterogeneity in surface area of the colony-forming units before infection. The ratio lysogens/lysed cells shows a tendency to decrease when multiplicity is increased from 6 to 130.The experiments stress the influence of the bacterial density on the adsorption rate constant of the bacteriophage.Single step growth curve experiments gave low burst size values. The latent period was about 30 min. The stationary period began 45 to 50 min after infection.