Thermal inactivation of cholera phages

Thermal inactivation of seven cholera phages have been tested over the temperature range between 50 degrees to 70 degrees C. It was found that the phages vary widely in their heat sensitivity, Mukerjee's phages III being the most sensitive of the whole group. With all the phages over the temperature range studies, the inactivation curve seem to follow the pattern of virus thermal inactivation in general, the inactivation proceeding initially at a rapid rate, which in about 15 minutes time, gradually changes to a slower rate, each component tending to follow kinetics of the first order. The difficulty of explaining this phenomenon on the basis of population heterogeneity has been discussed.