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)
phage.org | phage-therapy.org | biologyaspoetry.org | abedon.phage.org | google scholar | publications
Jump to: 📖 Discussion | 🔬 Phage Terms | 🔤 Index | 🧮 Calculators
phage.org/terms/vegetative_phage.html · Abedon’s Books · DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.20173633
How can I improve this page? contact: terms@phage.org
Key is that a vegetative phage contrasts with a prophage. The concept of a vegetative phage, though, also contrasts with free phages and, perhaps, also with mature virions that have not yet been released from infected bacteria.
Another consideration is the degree of discreteness of vegetative phages, i.e., is the vegetative phage equivalent to an infective center, that is, other than in terms of the free phage aspect of infective centers? Or is an individual bacterial infection in some manner divisible into more than one vegetative phage?
Vegetative phage is (or was) approximately equivalent in its usage to the contrast between, for example, the bacterial vegetative state (or growth state, i.e., vegetative cell) versus a non-replicative endospore form. This comparison, though, comes with the caveat that prophages still replicate, just not via phage productive cycles.
This is the definition from Adams (1959), p. 442: "The form in which phage (or phage genes) multiply during the lytic cycle of phage growth." Keep in mind that this definition was authored prior to the discovery of chronically releasing phages, hence the emphasis on "lytic" cycle rather than "productive" cycle, though with the caveat that almost nobody employs the term productive cycle versus the substantially more familiar lytic cycle.
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.