Figure 6.

Visualization of theoretical phage adsorption curves, including biphasic curves. The two top curves differ only in terms of the scale of their y-axes, which is linear to the left and logarithmic to the right. The adsorption rate constant, k, has been set to 2.5 × 10⁻⁹ mL⁻¹ min⁻¹ [8], for the solid-line curves, while N has been set to 10⁸ cells per mL. For the dotted-line curves, k instead has been arbitrarily set to 2.5 × 10⁻¹⁰ mL⁻¹ min⁻¹, with these latter curves initiated at their point of intersection with the solid-line curves. If these were biphasic curves, then they would be represented as seen on the bottom, shown there as dashed lines, which are identical to the top curves except that the k = 2.5 × 10⁻⁹ mL⁻¹ min⁻¹ curves are not shown below the point of intersection of the two curves on top. Note in particular how with the curve shown in the lower-left it may be difficult to appreciate that biphasic adsorption is occurring whereas with the otherwise identical curve shown to the lower-right the biphasic nature of curves can be more obvious. These graphs were generated as [Faction Free Virions Remaining] = e^−kNt, where N, as bacterial concentration, is equivalent to N₀ in Equation (A6).