Evaluation of T3 coliphage injuries and efficacy of selected materials in preventing them.

A procedure was developed to analyze the inactivation of coliphage T3 during freeze-drying and subsequent rehydration. The amount of gross disruption of the phage as compared with the amount of phage remaining intact was evaluated by cesium chloride density gradient centrifugation. The amount of phage material able to adsorb to host cells and the residual infectivity after the drying were also evaluated. These analyses made it possible to determine the amount of phage material (i) degraded to protein and nucleic acid, (ii) intact or largely intact, (iii) capable of adsorption on host cells, and (iv) infective. The capacities of casein hydrolysate, ascorbic acid, thiourea, bovine albumin, polyethyleneglycol, raffinose, inositol, and lipoproteins to protect T3 bacteriophage from the stress of freeze-drying were investigated.