๐Ÿ”ฌ Infective Center

A free phage, a phage infection (singly or multiply of the same class="bap-term">bacterium), or even a phage-infected cellular)">bacterial arrangement or aggregation, all as give rise to a single plaque upon plating.

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

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About this entry: Infective Center 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/infective_center.html  ·  Abedon’s Books  ·  DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.20173633

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Infective Center: A free phage, a phage infection (singly or multiply of the same class="bap-term">bacterium), or even a phage-infected cellular)">bacterial arrangement or aggregation, all as give rise to a single plaque upon plating.

Discussion

<p>This is the definition from Adams (1959), p. 440, "A plaque-forming particle that may be either a productively infected bacterium or a free phage particle. When one or the other is meant, the term infective center should not be used." That is, infective center is a broader description versus the narrower, specific cases of infected bacterium or free phage.

External links

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References

  • Adams (1959). Bacteriophages. Interscience Publishers, New York.

How to cite this page

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

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Infective Center — terms.phage.org — phage.org — Stephen T. Abedon — Version 2026.05.14