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Superinfection immunity

| posted today, 15:42
Does superinfection immunity completely block a lysogen from being reinfected by the same temperate phage that established the lysogeny?
| posted today, 15:50
If both phages have the same repressor, then a lysogen of one should not be infected by the other phage. We have examples where the phages of the same cluster do infect a lysogen, but their repressor is broken/absent. We also have examples where a phage can carry 2 different repressors (why not, right?) and keep keep out phages of a different cluster. in order for a phage to maintain lysogeny, a repressor can be essential.
Papers include Cell, 2023. Other papers of D29. A paper about phage Tweety….
Lots of examples.
debbie
| posted today, 15:54
pia1@pitt.edu
Does superinfection immunity completely block a lysogen from being reinfected by the same temperate phage that established the lysogeny?

In general, homotypic superinfection immunity is complete, meaning that a given phage will not be able to complete a productive infection in a lysogen of that phage – you wont expect to see plaques. At some low frequency, you can expect to see plaques. These are often the result of a mutant phage within the population of phage in your lysate that cannot be repressed. You might imagine, for example, a mutation in the binding site of the immunity repressor that weakens binding and repression. If your phage is behaving counter to these generalized outcomes, please do share!
 
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