When to be Temperate: On the Fitness Benefits of Lysis vs. Lysogeny

Bacterial viruses, i.e., ‘bacteriophage’ or ‘phage’, can infect and lyse their bacterial hosts, releasing new viral progeny. In addition to the lytic pathway, certain bacteriophage (i.e., ‘temperate’ bacteriophage) can also initiate lysogeny, a latent mode of infection in which the viral genome is integrated into and replicated with the bacterial chromosome. Subsequently, the integrated viral genome, i.e., the ‘prophage’, can induce and restart …