LIFE CYCLE OF A BACTERIOPHAGE

Free-floating phages drift around in the environment, hoping to encounter a bacterial host.

Once the phage binds to a suitable host, it injects its genetic material into the cell.

If the phage’s genetic material evades the cell’s defences, the cell will start manufacturing the proteins encoded in the virus genome.

This causes a build-up of viral proteins inside the cell, which assemble into hundreds of new bacteriophages.

The phage eventually instructs the cell to produce a protein that bursts it open. The bacterium is dead and the new phages are released to repeat the cycle in another host cell.