Bacteriophages Are Infections That Taint Microorganisms.

6. Humans should not be concerned about the bacteriophages infecting other cells because each bacteriophage is particular to a certain bacteria. If the bacterial cell exhibits traits that are desirable to the certain bacteriophage, then the phage will chose to bind and infect it, otherwise people have nothing to worry about.

Isolating and characterize a novel phage from the environment requires several steps and several frustrations. By isolating and investigating a phage found in the Pullman region can hopefully lead to a newly discovered phage that can help researchers discover more about the life cycle and process of phage infection. Some phage infection can be good due to infecting the bacteria that is not wanted or is harmful to the environment or humans. Within this lab, there were steps taken necessary to isolate a novel phage that was obtained from the surrounding Pullman area. This report reflects plaques being isolated but then stopped due to errors and loss of plates. The final touches and procedures were accomplished with a given DNA ladder that was

The titer of recombinant phage was determined with the number of plaques on the E.coli K plates and the titer of total phage progeny was determined with the number of plaque on the E.coli B plates.

Titer of the Bacterial virus, the Measurement of the Recombination and the Reversion Rate, and the Gene Map Distance (Phage Recombination)

The main objectives of this experiment included making dilutions of solutions, plating phage or bacteria, and determining the number of bacterial viruses or phage in a suspension. It was also conducted to demonstrate that two different mutants of phage T4 can exchange genetic material to give rise to wild-type phage. The experiment was used to distinguish mutants from wild-type by their host specificity. The recombination in bacteriophage was performed to determine the concentration of unadsorbed phage from the U series plates, total concentration from B series, and concentration of

This project is all about isolating bacteriophage in soil. They come in different sizes and shapes, each to their own unique look. Phages have a protective protein head that contains DNA and a hollow tube tails (http://phages.org/bacteriophage/). Since bacteriophage cannot reproduce and replicate themselves, they need a host to do the work for

“Bacterial illness is a result of complex interactions between bacteria and the host. During evolution, humans developed many ways to protect themselves against bacterial pathogens. On the other hand, bacteria have developed strategies to evade, subvert or circumvent these defenses” (Sousa, 2003) “One of the most important characteristics of bacterial pathogenicity is the various strategies developed by prokaryotic organisms to use host molecules for their own benefit” (Sousa, 2003). “To accomplish this, bacteria have evolved elaborate control mechanisms to turn genes on and off, varying the transcriptional activator or

For millions of years’ bacteria have been surviving to their environments and been at war against other microorganism. This wars have lead them to creating an unstoppable arsenal of weapons they can use to survive. Unlike virus that need a host cell to survive, bacteria can survive anywhere since they can share their DNA with each other. This allows bacteria to survive in places like radioactive waste, zero oxygen environments, and even in absolute darkness. Unlike human beings who are born with a specific genetic code, bacteria have the capability of changing that code. Bacteria have three methods of evolving themselves in order to survive the harsh is of conditions. The three methods are called horizontal gene transfer. The first is Transformation, but some pathologists call it the “Funeral Grab”.

Microbes have several virulence factors to help evade the immune response and reproduce such as capsules. These capsules or polysaccharide matrixes aid survival through antigenic masking that protects the microbe against immune barriers and allows them to reproduce and infect a susceptible host. Many microorganisms including Clostridium botulinum also produce heat resistant endospores that are difficult to eradicate and aid transmission; Clostridium botulinum is able to enter the food chain and produce a botulinum toxin to create a common – source epidemic. Other microbes such as Bacillus anthracis can produce spores that are hard to eradicate and are used for air – borne transmission. Some pathogenic organisms including Staphylococcus aureus are also developing an innate resistance to antibiotic treatment. This prolongs the treatment and gives the microbe additional time to infect more susceptible hosts and establish

According to “Injected Bacteria Shrink Tumors in Rats, Dogs and Humans” (2015) a bacterium normally found in oxygen poor soil has been genetically modified to be target specific to a tumor that has oxygen starved cells. Once introduced to a person, these microorganisms can replicate and inhibit their growth and destroy it. In one study, three live tissue models had “complete eradication of their tumors” while in the other three, the tumor “shrunk by at least 30%.” There are also experiments to use bacteria to treat other diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune disorder that causes the body to attack the joints. In addition, viruses can be used to treat diseases. It’s interesting to think you can take a virus to destroy a bacterium. In fact, there are naturally occurring viruses called bacteriophages, meaning eats bacteria, which attack them. This was discovered before the discovery of antibiotics, but bacteriophages initially were not successful. Soon antibiotics became the tool of choice and bacteriophages became a disregarded avenue to fight bacteria. Unfortunately, the emergence of multi-resistant bacteria is a growing concern because the surviving bacteria have learned to protect itself from it. As a result, scientists are revisiting studies to treat bacteria infections with

The coincidental phylogenesis hypothesis suggests some forms of pathogenic virulence did not co-evolve with the host . After, C. tetani bacteria enter a person wound, the bacteria may grow and divide rapidly, even though the human body is not their natural habitat. C. tetani produce neurotoxin that is lethal to the human race . Bacterium's normal aliveness cycle is in the soil not in a human body which that leads it to produce this toxin (Farrar, 2000). The bacterium gets inside a human instead of in the soil by mere coincidence . The neurotoxin is not coordinated at the human host. The harmfulness of numerous pathogens in people may not be an objective of determination itself, but instead an unplanned by-result of choice that works on different attributes. Broadening into new surroundings is a

Although I understand the science behind why bacteriophage is an ideal for treatment especially with the increase in antibiotic resistant bacteria, but my concerns are the pro and cons of this type of therapy. Is there a possibility of further infection or even worse will that infection cause a fatal result. According to an article in U.S. National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health, that clinical trials show promising results, but that the treatments are not completely effective. (Nilsson, 2014) This is due to studies being done with few phages and with limited experimental groups and therapy has limitations. This therapy can only be effective with large amount of groups so that comparisons can be made between he different

typhimurium was ran on the first day to determine the CFU/mL of the overnight culture in order to calculate the volume of phage needed for transduction, the dilution of 10-8 was used since 93 colonies (9.3 x 109 CFU/mL) grew on the LB plate (See table 1). A titration of P22 phage and S. typhimurium were also performed to determine the PFU/mL of the P22 phage, a control plate with phage alone showed now growth, and the dilution 10-7 was found to have 132 plaques (1.32 x 109 PFU/mL). This value was used together with the dilution results of S. typhimurium on day 1 for calculating the volume of phage (see sample calculation). An MOI of 0.01 was used with these two values (volume of bacteria was .1mL) in order to determine the volume of phage needed for transduction, which ended up being 7µl. Using this information, three plates were run for the transduction, one plate with cells only on LB-CM, a plate with the cells and the phage on LB-CM, and a plate with phage only on LB-CM. There was only growth on the cells and phage plate, giving 158 colonies (1.58x103/mL) (see figure 1. And table 1. for results). This indicated successful transduction of the chloramphenicol gene since only colonies with the phage were able to grow on the antibiotic plate. A “final” titration was simultaneously run for the specific sample of recipient S. typhimurium actually used in the transduction, with the dilution of 10-8 resulting in 262 colonies (2.62 x 1010

There are several advantages to phage therapy with target specificity being one of the main ones. Most phages will only lyse bacteria of a particular species or a specific strain meaning that the human microbiota should not be affected. In contrast, antibiotics are less specific and so treatment usually disrupts this flora, allowing opportunistic bacteria to thrive. This specificity is also a limitation as the bacteria causing the infection needs to be determined otherwise the treatment is likely to be useless. Such problems can however be addressed with the use of phage combinations like ‘cocktails’ used in the above study.

There are twenty known groups of the vibrio cholera bacteria however, group V.cholerae 01 and group V.cholerae 0139 only are capable of causing epidemics. The main causes for the spread of these strains to cause epidemics are transmission via drinking untreated water from a water source with similar conditions to the where the organism would naturally grow, or via eating or drinking produce contaminated by the faeces of infected people. Once ingested pathogenesis occurs. The bacteria enter the human gut and begin to colonise the small intestine. Their flagella provide motility and digestive enzymes such as mucinase, a mucolytic enzyme which depolymerises mucus, allow