๐Ÿ”ฌ Free Phage

Bacteriophage virion that has been released from its parental infected class="bap-term">bacterium but has not yet adsorption">adsorbed to another bacterium.

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

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About this entry: Free Phage 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/free_phage.html  ·  Abedon’s Books  ·  DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.20173633

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Free Phage: Bacteriophage virion that has been released from its parental infected class="bap-term">bacterium but has not yet adsorption">adsorbed to another bacterium.

Discussion

<p>A phage should continue to be considered to be free following non-inactivating class="bap-term">adsorption to non-bacterial materials such as soil particles or wikipedia.org/wiki/Activated_charcoal" class="bap-term" target=_blank>activated charcoal, i.e., as may be described as bound free phages. Phages particularly remain free, that is, so long as they are both adsorption capable and able to encounter bacteria such that adsorption can be accomplished.

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How to cite this page

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

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Free Phage — terms.phage.org — phage.org — Stephen T. Abedon — Version 2026.05.14