Phage-mediated lysis increases growth rate of surviving bacterial cells

Bacterial phage infection and subsequent lysis are traditionally considered mechanisms of bacterial mortality and viral propagation; additionally, emerging evidence indicates that they may also contribute to nutrient recycling in broader ecological systems. However, it remains unclear how the nutrients released during cell lysis affect the growth dynamics of the remaining bacterial population. Addressing this gap, we built a controlled system consisting of two Escherichia coli lysogenic strains: one carrying a wild-type λ prophage and the other a temperature-inducible variant that can be induced to lyse at 38 °C. Using this system, we selectively induced phage lysis in a defined fraction of the population and quantified both total biomass and the biomass of surviving, non-lysed cells. We observed that the biomass loss was consistently smaller than expected based on the fraction of lysed cells, supporting the idea that some of the released biomass is rapidly recycled by the non-lysed population. To formalize the observed dynamics and obtain quantitative insight, we developed a mathematical model showing that nutrients released during lysis can transiently enhance the growth rate of the surviving, non-lysed cells. This effect emerges on a short timescale of minutes, consistent with the rapid onset of biomass compensation observed experimentally. The growth rate increase was confirmed in single-cell experiments using microfluidics and time-lapse microscopy, where we cultured wild-type lysogens in lysate-containing culture supernatants. In summary, the results suggest that nutrients released through lysis are rapidly consumed, leading to an acceleration in the growth rate of non-lysed cells. The consequent partial compensation for cell loss can substantially influence the population dynamics, highlighting phage lysis as a direct modulator of bacterial growth. Overall, our findings provide quantitative insights into how phage-mediated lysis affects the physiology of non-lysed bacterial cells, extending beyond its well-established role in biomass recycling.