Integration Host factor is a DNA-binding/bending protein of E. coli and some of its bacteriophages, it is essential for gene regulation, site-specific recombination, and other physiological processes.

[4] This is all we knew for a while but through another article, we were able to find that with further research, IHF plays a key role in the scope of physiological processes of E. Coli, including site-specific recombination activities, phage packaging and partitioning, DNA replication, and the expression of many genes.

[5] This leads to the fact that IHF is an essential protein used to replicate DNA, expression of genes, as well as phage packaging in cells.

During this process the E. Coli k-12 genes are transduced into the salmonella and later expressed using IHF (integrated host factors), during the lytic phase.

[6] HU and integration host factor function as auxiliary proteins in cleavage of phage lambda cohesive ends by terminase is an academic journal written by the Department of Molecular Genetics.

In their article, they created isogenic strains of E.coli that were lacking HU or integration host factors to test whether bacteriophage would grow under these conditions.

HU and integration host factors (referred to as IHF throughout) are DNA-binding proteins that participate in several DNA replication processes.

They found that if the phage was lacking both HU and IHF the lytic growth was restricted, and plaques were unable to form.

Similarly, those strains lacking HU or IHF showed that late gene transcription was reduced by 3 folds.