Credit: Zemer Gitai, Britt Adamson and Ned Wingreen, Princeton University
Examination of bacteria through M3-seq shows that only a subset of cells, represented by Cluster 3 in (top), actually become infected by bacteriophage λ and begin expressing viral genes. This finding was confirmed by using time-lapse microscopy, which showed that only about a third of cells are affected by virus (as shown by the dying cells, labeled red, in the time series at bottom).