SUMMARY

Adsorption of T ~ phages or their ghosts to Escherichia coli B resulted in the following events. (a) Addition of either phage or ghost caused rapid enhancement of potassium efftux and a corresponding decrease in the intracellular concentration of potassium. (b) Within the first 2 rain after infection, the intracellular concen-tration of potassium started to recover in phage, but not in ghost-infected ceils. The recovery, which corresponded presumably to some repair process, was com-pleted 4 to 5 rain after infections. (c) The K + influx was enhanced slightly, and reduced Io-fold, in the phage and in the ghost-infected cells, respectively. The repair process in the phage-infected cells was inhibited by pre-treatment of the bacteria with chloramphenicol, r by lowering the temperature from 37 to 20 °C. Formalinized phages affect he bacteria in the same manner as the ghosts. Damage which resulted from ghost adsorption, a d was characterized byK + transport and infective centres experiments, could be repaired to some degree by infective phage adsorption. The effects due to ghost adsorption could be partially reduced by resuspending the treated bacteria in a medium which contained a concentrate of the non-dialysable metabolites that leaked out of the ghost-treated cells