Properties of the cholera phage PL 163/10.

Vibrio cholerae phage PL 163/10, belonging to Mukherjee's group I, gave clear plaques with surrounding halos of overall diameters varying between 1 to 4 mm when plated on a lawn of host V. cholerae OGAWA 154. It was fairly stable in the PH range 6-11. Its thermal inactivation was characterised by half lives of 39, 12, 4.5 and 1.0 minutes at 55, 60, 65 and 70 degree C respectively. The thermodynamic parameters deltaH, deltaF and deltaS were determined at these temperatures. The phange was resistant in vitro to sodium deoxycholate, trytrypsin, chloroform, robonuclease, deoxyribonuclease, Tris, Tris + EDTA, Tris + lysozyme and phosphate buffer but rapidly inactivated by sodium lauryl sulfate. Adsorption of this phage was biphasic. Intracelllular growth of the PL 163/10 phage was characterised by an eclipse period of 13 minutes, latent period of 31 minutes, rise period of 29 minutes and an average burst size of about 10 PFU/cell. This phage possessed a hexagonal head 106 plus or minus 18 x x 740 plus or minus 27 A without any tail structure.