Figure 5-1: General phage life cycle. Solid lines are paths that must be traversed to complete the phage life cycle while dashed lines are optional plus may be detrimental to phage propagation. I use the word 'Decay' in its most general sense to describe conversion of phage virions or intact phage-infected bacteria from a viable plaque-forming unit to either a non-infectious virion or a phage-infected bacterium that is unable to produce phage virions. (for better image quality, click here for tif image, which may be quite large; may also require screen refreshing plus special software to view; or view larger tif in separate window)Figure 5-1, Figure 5-2a, Figure 5-2b, Figure 5-2c, Figure 5-2d, Figure 5-3 ( a, b, c, d )
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