Question

Write a paragraph describing the steps in a bacteriophage- bacterial plaque assay as described in Lab 22 of the Bio 3 Lab Manual, and describe events that occur on an agar plate containing a bacterial lawn for a single bacteriophage particle to cause the formation of a plaque. Can a plaque assay be used with viruses that infect human cells?

Answer 1

Bacteriophage plaque assay is used to identify the type of virus that infects the bacteria. Bacterial infecting virus or bacteriophage can be lytic or lysogenic and lytic phage gets inside , replicates and lyse the bacteria to infect the next cell and so on result in zone of clearing or plaque in bacterial lawn and temperate or lysogenic phage gets integrated into the cell and forms confluent lawn.

Once a bacterial cell gets infected with virus, it gets repliacted and produces protein coat that surroudn the virus and lyse the cell and gets released and infects the next cell and thereby forms plaque like straucture

Yes to study the infectivity of human viruses, we can culture the human cells and use plaque assau to produce virus for further analysis and to study the infection