Proportion of phage-insensitive and phage-sensitive cells within pure strains of lactic streptococci, and the influence of calcium

Abstract

It is of industrial importance to investigate the interaction ofStreptococcus lactiswith phages. Although it has been long recognized that in phage–bacterial relationships the phage-carrier state can occur (Hunter, 1947), relatively little study has been done on this subject. The terras ‘phage-carrier state’ and ‘pseudolysogeny’ have been used synonymously to describe bacterial cultures which are persistently infected with a virus (Barksdale & Arden, 1974, Lawrenceet al.1976). The phagecarrier state differs from lysogenesis in that the bacteria are easily separated from the bacteriophage by a simple plating and re-isolation procedure (Grahamet al.1952). Süssmuth & Tayran (1986) showed that after lysis of one single strain, phage and phage-insensitive bacteria coexist. This work investigates the proportion of phage-insensitive bacteria remaining after lysis of otherStr. lactisstrains, the effect of calcium on this proportion, and the number of generations required to return to a normal sensitive population.