๐Ÿ”ฌ Lytic Infection

A phage infection that destroys – i.e. lyses – its host class="bap-term">cell at the end of its latent period to release intracellular phage progeny.

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

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About this entry: Lytic Infection 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/lytic_infection.html  ·  Abedon’s Books  ·  DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.20173633

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Lytic Infection: A phage infection that destroys – i.e. lyses – its host class="bap-term">cell at the end of its latent period to release intracellular phage progeny.

Discussion

<p>A lytic infection either does or does not follow a lysogenic infection, depending on phage as well as circumstances. To distinguish these two possibilities, one can employ the terms "induced lytic infection" and "immediate lytic infection", respectively. (Or, alternatively, "induced lytic cycle" and "immediate lytic cycle".) Just as with the concept of lytic cycle, the wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambiguity" target="_blank" class="bap-term">ambiguity that comes with the idea of a lytic infection stems from how those infections begin, i.e., following induction versus following adsorption. Therefore, if there is any potential for confusion then then the concept should be qualified, such as in terms of "induced" versus "immediate".

External links

How to cite this page

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

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Lytic Infection — terms.phage.orgphage.org — Stephen T. Abedon — Version 2026.05.14