Chapter 6, Problem 29P

Bacterial cells were coinfected with two types of bacteriophage lambda: One carried the c⁺ allele and the other the c allele. After the cells lysed, progeny bacteriophage were collected. When a single such progeny bacteriophage was used to infect a new bacterial cell, it was observed in rare cases that some of the resulting phage progeny were c⁺ and others were c. Explain this result.