Overproduction of a viral protein during infection of a lyc mutant of Escherichia coli with phage λmm434

The bacterial lyc7 mutation probably affects the same gene as the hf1 mutation described by Belfort and Wulff and promotes increased lysogenisation by lambdoid phages. The synthesis of lambdoid phage-specific proteins has been examined after infection of ultraviolet light-irradiated lyc⁺ and lyc7 Escherichia coli strains, and a new protein with a molecular weight of 14,000 was observed to appear during infection of the mutant but not of the wild type. This protein may be the product of the phage cII gene.