Bacteriophage infection dynamics: Multiple host binding sites

Abstract

We construct a stochastic model of bacteriophage parasitism of a host bacteria that accounts for demographic stochasticity of host and parasite and allows for multiple bacteriophage adsorption to host. We analyze the associated deterministic model, identifying the basic reproductive number for phage proliferation, showing that host and phage persist when it exceeds unity, and establishing that the distribution of adsorbed phage on a host is binomial with slowly evolving mean. Not surprisingly, extinction of the parasite or both host and parasite can occur for the stochastic model. © EDP Sciences, 2009.