๐Ÿ”ฌ Encounter

The step in a phage class="bap-term">life cycle that immediately precedes phage attachment to a bacterium (reversible adsorption) but which does not necessarily lead to such adsorption.

by Stephen T. Abedon Ph.D. (abedon.1@osu.edu)

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About this entry: Encounter is one of a growing set of phage biology and phage therapy terms defined here. For more phage terms, see Abedon, S.T. (2025). Phage Therapy Annotated Glossary. Preprints.org. 10.20944/preprints202508.0347.v1

phage.org/terms/encounter.html  ·  Abedon’s Books  ·  DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.20173633

How can I improve this page?  contact: terms@phage.org

Encounter: The step in a phage class="bap-term">life cycle that immediately precedes phage attachment to a bacterium (reversible adsorption) but which does not necessarily lead to such adsorption.

Discussion

<p>Encounter additionally can be used to describe phage interaction with objects that are other than individual bacteria such as with surfaces, EPS, and biofilms.

For additional consideration of the impact of encounter frequencies on phage ecology, see Murray and Jackson (1992), the appendix of Goodridge (2008), Hagens and Loessner (2010), and Abedon (2011).

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References

How to cite this page

Abedon, S.T. (2026). Phage Terms. https://terms.phage.org  ·  10.5281/zenodo.20173633

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Encounter — terms.phage.org — phage.org — Stephen T. Abedon — Version 2026.05.14