∞ generated and posted on 2023.05.18 ∞
Measure of the rapidity with which free phages can become attached to bacteria.
| Phages with larger Adsorption Rate Constants adsorb to bacteria faster than phages with smaller Adsorption Rate Constants. |
The phage adsorption rate constant represents a complicated parameter combining virion diffusion rates, bacterial target size, and virion adsorption affinity for a bacterium. Increases in any of these parameters will result in increases in rates of phage adsorption and thereby increases in the magnitude of a phage's adsorption rate constant. The constant is independent, however, of both phage and bacterial concentrations.
Technically, the adsorption rate constant is the probability of adsorption of a single phage to a single bacterium, both suspended in a single unit volume of fluid over a single unit of time. That is, for example, per min and per ml, or per hour and per ml (though often this is shown instead as ml min-1 = ml/min = cm3/min, or indeed ml-1 min-1; in addition are ml hr-1 = ml/hr, etc.).
A typical value is in the range of 10-8 (very fast adsorption) to 10-10 (very slow adsorption) ml min-1. Note that that 60 × X ml/min = Y ml/hr.
Typically adsorption rate constants are determinations of rates of irreversible adsorption rather than of reversible adsorption of virions to bacteria.
Determinations of adsorption rates and thereby adsorption rate constants ideally involve multiple (>2) kinetic measurements of either phage removal from the free phage state or phage gain of the adsorbed state. See also adsorption efficiency.
Next | Previous phage therapy-related terms: Auto Dosing | Adsorption Cofactor.
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