A study of the antigenicity of T3 and T4 coli-dysentery bacteriophages during the vegetative stage of development.

The development of viral neutralizing antibodies in animals injected with T(3) or T(4) phage is considerably inhibited by the presence of bacterial antigens. A new procedure has been described to liberate phage from infected E. coli B bacteria by inducing lysis with penicillin. By immunological means it has been shown that T(4)-infected cultures of E. coli B, in which phage development has been inhibited with proflavine, contain the viral neutralizing antigen after lysis. In contrast, it has not been possible to demonstrate by immunological means the appearance of viral neutralizing antigen in E. coli B infected with T(3) prior to the appearance of intracellular phage.