Intemperate

Abedon, Stephen T.

doi:10.5281/zenodo.20173633

🔬 Intemperate

Direct descendant of a temperate phage that is able to successfully infect otherwise homoimmune lysogens but unable to display lysogeny.

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

About this entry: Intemperate 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

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

Intemperate: Direct descendant of a temperate phage that is able to successfully infect otherwise homoimmune lysogens but unable to display lysogeny.

Discussion

<p>From the glossary of Hershey (1971), p. 777), this is a definition of "virulent": "A virulent or intemperate phage species is one unable to lysogenize its host. Virulent mutants of λ are able to grow in Immunity">immune cells as a result of mutational loss of ability to bind repressor."

From the glossary of Hershey (1971), p. 773, note also this definition of "clear" (as in, "clear" plaque): "Lambda and other temperate phages form plaques that are Turbidity">turbid owing to growth of cells surviving the infection. Mutants forming clear plaques (clear mutants) establish immunity loss efficiently and permit fewer cells to survive."

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References

Hershey (ed.) (1971). The Bacteriophage Lambda. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

How to cite this page

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

[1] Hershey (ed.) (1971). The Bacteriophage Lambda. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

🔬 Intemperate

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