by Stephen T. Abedon Ph.D. Steve Abedon, Ph.D., has taught well over 100 individual classes and ~10 individual courses (including introductory biology, microbiology, physiology, biochemistry, etc.) over his 30+ years as a college professor. He has over 150 publications, including multiple monographs, and is ranked in the top 1 or 2 percent among researchers of all disciplines worldwide. His research focuses on bacteriophage biology and phage therapy. (abedon.1@osu.edu)
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phage.org/terms/single_infection.html · Abedon’s Books · DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.20173633
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Typically when describing a single infection one disregards whether the bacterium being infected is or is not a lysogen and this is because it is assumed that the singly infecting phage and prophage will only minimally interact. Indeed, use of this term, single infection, can be particularly to distinguish infections of individual cells that are initiated by multiple phages of the same type versus by only a single phage, and this is rather than to distinguish between bacteria that have been infected by a single phage type (as a single infection) versus by more than one phage type. Contrast multiple infection.
The use of single infection is often operational, specifying conditions in which infection is likely but multiple infection is not. Consistently, this is the definition from Adams (1959), p. 442: "Multiplicity of infection considerably less than one, so that most of the infected bacteria in a culture are infected with only one phage particle."
Abedon, S.T. (2026). Phage Terms. https://terms.phage.org · 10.5281/zenodo.20173633
Every term in the Glossary of Bacteriophage Terms. The current page is highlighted purple.