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Updated: Feb 28, 2026
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Phage Phenomics: Physiological Approaches to Characterize Novel Viral Proteins
Published on: June 11, 2015
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Single-phage profiling illuminates viral individuality during cell fate determination
Ehsan Homaee1,2, Wenqing Zhu1,3, Tianyou Yao1
1Department of Physics, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA.
Biorxiv : the Preprint Server for Biology
|February 27, 2026
Summary
Bacteriophage lambda infection in E. coli reveals that individual phage transcription varies. Consensus phage activity is required for cell dormancy, challenging previous assumptions about viral infection outcomes.
Area of Science:
- Microbiology
- Molecular Biology
- Systems Biology
Background:
- Bacteriophage infection presents a choice between cell lysis and viral dormancy (lysogeny).
- Cellular heterogeneity arises from stochastic viral transcription within genetically uniform populations.
- Previous studies lacked empirical methods to interrogate single-virus transcriptional activity.
Purpose of the Study:
- To profile individual phage transcriptional activity during synchronized infection of E. coli.
- To understand the emergence of cellular heterogeneity from single-virus behavior.
- To investigate the role of viral replication and consensus activity in host fate determination.
Main Methods:
- Parallel sequential fluorescence in situ hybridization (par-seqFISH) to detect phage transcripts.
- Spatial clustering of phage-encoded transcripts within individual E. coli cells.
- Analysis of transcriptional activity at both whole-cell and single-phage levels during bacteriophage lambda infection.
Main Results:
- Whole-cell transcription kinetics correlate with the lysis-lysogeny fate decision.
- Viral replication is essential for the divergence of host cell fate.
- Single-phage analysis revealed variability in viral activity; lytic cells contained phages with lysogenic activity, suggesting consensus is needed for dormancy.
Conclusions:
- Cellular heterogeneity in bacteriophage infection emerges from the interplay of individual viral activities.
- Consensus among coinfecting phages is a prerequisite for establishing cell dormancy (lysogeny).
- Understanding whole-cell behavior requires examining the activity of distinct genetic circuit copies.
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