Abstract Archaeal viruses predominantly exhibit a chronic lifestyle, where viral particles are released without causing host cell death. Therefore, conventional plaque assays, which are well-suited for identifying lytic viruses, usually fail to detect chronically infecting viruses due to their non-lytic nature. To address this limitation, we developed an optimized plaque assay protocol for detecting chronically infecting viruses of haloarchaea, particularly species within the Haloferax genus.
