You should go for the second plate because its easy to pick up a plaque while in the first one its difficult because of confluent lysis.
If you want to purify a single plaque from a potentially mixed population then begin with the second plate. If the phage are already pure then ideally you want semi-confluent lysis plates, of the two pictures plate 1 is best but a slightly higher concentration would improve your yield i.e. a 10-2 dilution. This can then be overlaid with buffer for phage extraction.
@ paul, 10-2 dilution had complete lysis, so does that make 10-3 (the first pic) the best option for extracting phage ?
btw, the phage was previously purified.
Thanks,
Richard.
@ paul, and can you please tell me why we choose the plate containing semi-confluent lysis and not the complete lysis ?, i mean, we already know its pure.
Thanks, Richard.
You want to have as many plaques as possible without achieving confluent lysis because at this point you will start to get multiple infections of single host cells. This will overload the bacterial host and lead to the accumulation of defective phage particles resulting in a decreased titre.
I agree with Paul, I would prepare a plate with even more plaques if your goal is to prepare a high titer stock. The plate should be nearly confluent with plaques in order to maximize your yield.
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