Bacteriophage life cycles are dependent on their type. Below we present three main ways of development of bacteriophages.
Virulent bacteriophages can develop only through a lytic pathway. They cannot form lysogens by stable integration of their genome with a host cell. However, some virulent phages are able to establish unstable interaction with the host cell and form pseudolysogens. Temperate phages are basically bacteriophages which can choose between a lytic and lysogenic pathway of development. The lytic pathway is similar to this of virulent phages. In the lysogenic pathway a virus remains dormant until induction. Filamentous phages may cause a chronic infection which do not result in a cell lysis, but the effect is a constant release of phage progeny from infected cells.
