Pros And Cons Of Bacteriophage

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.

There are two significant alternate approaches we could use to target and kill bacteria. One potential alternate approach to the treatment of infectious disease is utilizing monoclonal antibodies to supplement our own immune systems. Monoclonal antibodies are pure cultures of antibodies (the body’s primary foreign substance detection molecules) artificially produced to react to a single specific substance or protein. By utilizing monoclonal antibodies to treat bacterial infection, we would be flagging the bacteria for the body’s immune system to come kill them. As the body already flags bacteria to some extent, all monoclonal antibodies can do is enhance the activity of the immune system, which would be ineffective in people with compromised immune systems. Additionally, monoclonal antibodies would have to be developed for each individual strain of bacteria, and bacteria could easily change and render the antibody useless. While it would

A virus is a noncellular particle containing a genome that can replicate only inside of a cell (Slonczewski and Foster, 2009). It contains an infective nucleic acid, virion, inside a capsid, which is a protective shell made up of proteins. Some virions have a method of transportation to transfer its genome into the host cell. Most often viral gene transfer mediates the evolution of cell genomes. When a virus infects the host cell, the genome of the virus subverts the host cell to make copies of the virus, which then escape to infect more cells (Slonczewski and Foster, 2009). The bacteriophages T4 and X174 were used because the sizes of them simulates a human pathogen, since a human viral pathogen cannot be used. Bacteriophage T4 is used to mimic a Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and bacteriophage X174 was used to mimic the Hepatitis C virus.

Antibiotics have always been used to treat illnesses such as staph infections, tuberculosis, and others. But now, scientists are coming up with new ways to eliminate bacteria in a human. The company called ContraFeet in NY found a back-up in bacteriophages---this is a virus that infects bacteria and has enzymes called lysins. The ContraFeet company are willing to try the lysins to help eliminate and kill bacterial infections in humans.

We have shown that bacteriophage lambda can be cloned and amplified, ligated and transformed, and inserted successfully into bacterial cloning vector pUC18. The results from the experiments above can be used not only to clone known genes, but also to discover unknown genes that have potential in medicine and gene therapy.

Antibiotic susceptibility test was performed using disk diffusion method. Bacteriophage was isolated with use of standard methods listed. The isolated phage sensitivity to temperature, pH was studied. The morphology, size genome and protein profiles bacteriophage of isolates were analyzed. In order to access an appropriate titer for the treatment of results evaluation ,different concentrations of phage and bacteria were evaluated. Finally, preventive and therapeutic effect in an animal model was evaluated compared with ciprofloxacin.

Low doses, increased dose intervals and reduced treatment duration can lead to recrudescence of the infection and may increase the risk of selecting resistant organisms. On the other hand, the treatment period should never be prolonged unnecessarily as this will affect withdrawal times and amplify the adverse effects on the commensal flora. The variables affecting length of treatment have not been defined. Responses of different types of infections to antimicrobial drugs vary, and clinical experience with many infections is important in assessing response to treatment. For acute infections, it will be clear within 2days whether or not therapy is clinically effective. If no response is seen by that time, both the diagnosis and treatment should be reconsidered. Treatment of acute infection should be continued for at least 2 days after clinical and microbiological resolution of infections. For serious infections, treatment should last at least 7-10 days. For chronic infections, particularly intracellular infections, treatment will be considerably longer and may involve months. Some uncomplicated infections, such as cystitis in human females, have been treated successfully with single doses of antibiotics, and some antimicrobial agents are now being marketed for single administration in

Phage therapy has many applications in medicine, dentistry, veterinary science, and agriculture. In some cases the phage therapy can be very effective offering some advantages over antibiotics. Bacteria also develop resistance to phages, but it is easier to develop new phage than new antibiotic. When bacteria develop resistance, the opposite phages are evolved naturally. Phages have special advantage as they penetrate deeper as long as the infection is present, rather than decrease rapidly in concentration like antibiotics. The phages stop reproducing once the specific bacteria are destroyed. Phages do not develop secondary resistance, which is very often in antibiotics. Bacteriophages are much more specific than antibiotics. They are harmless not only to the host organism, but also to other beneficial bacteria, such as the gut flora. Phage therapy has few side effects. A small effective dose of phages is effective because they replicate in vivo. When the exact species of infecting bacteria is unknown or if there is several

Bacteriophages are very specific and will only infect a certain strain of bacteria. Once the bacteriophage attaches to the host cell, it will inject its genetic material into the

Bacteria surround us, they cover our bodies from our phalanges on our feet to the follicles of hair on our craniums. Therefore, it is important to realize that while, the majority of these astounding microorganisms are beneficial, certain bacteria are devastating to our health.

There are three different types of phages that each have two different life-styles, lytic and temperate. The phage that is mostly studied is mycobacteriophages. A phage was successfully chased, and was found to be a lytic phage. This was done by the process of colleting a soil sample and then performing enrichment, streak test, titers, harvest assays, spot titers, and preparing of an EM grid to ultimately see the phage that has been chased throughout the semester. This phage was also a myoviridae and named Stubby.

It was not until about a century ago that microbiologist Félix d’Herelle, discovered that phages can indeed help fight diseases; his experiment, isolating phages by passing feces through a filter, was used to help cure patients with dysentery (Kirby and Barr, 2013). The clear fluid was mixed with some bacteria named Shigell (Zimmer, 34). Little did he know that his work is the ground work for modern phage therapies (Kirby and Barr, 2013). d’Herelle had a probable thought that the phages do not kill their host (Kirby and Barr, 2013). To test the safety of phages, d’Herelle ingested them and injected them into his skin and confirmed no sicknesses occurred (Zimmer, 36). He was correct because today it is known that phages turn into prophages, which simply allows changes the host cells genome (Kirby and Barr, 2013); virus and host combine (Zimmer, 36). However, with recent research, uncertainty in the impacts of phage and host interaction have be discovered. It is not known how outside variables effect these interactions and that is why phage therapy should be taken with

ABSTRACT: Through experimentation new mycobacteriophage genomes were found and added to the scien-tific database. The objective was to find and isolate bacteriophage from soil or water samples, these samples could be taken from anywhere locally. Once the samples were purified through multiple steps, a method of electron microscopy was performed to isolate the viruses’ DNA. The soil sample we found was kept and that phage was infected with a host, m. smegmatis bacterium.

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), explains in his extensive research on antimicrobial resistants, “Microbes, such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites, are living organisms that evolve over time. Their primary function is to reproduce, thrive, and spread quickly and efficiently. Therefore, microbes adapt to their environments and change in ways that ensure their survival” (Fauci). As a direct result of the overuse of antibiotics, some bacteria are now completely resistant to those very same weapons that once killed them. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the directing and coordinating authority for health within the United Nations system, antimicrobial resistant bacteria, commonly referred to as Superbugs, are a complex problem, and as such, single, isolated interventions have little to no impact on this ever-growing problem (Antimicrobial). To mitigate or lessen the extent of Superbugs, scientists need to focus on the ammunition that has been around for millions of years. That simple solution is, coincidentally, bacteria. Specifically, scientists can create new antibacterial drugs that only kill specific types of bacteria, as derived from the principal that, bacteria and viruses kill other bacteria. This may sound complex, but the idea is put simply by microbiologist Vincent Fischetti, head of Rockefeller University’s Laboratory of Bacterial Pathogenesis and

The host bacterial strain L. Lactis 7–18, was grown at 30 °C in M17 broth (Oxoid Ltd., Basingstoke, Hampshire, England) supplemented with 0.5% glucose (GM17) (Terzaghi and Sandine, 1975). The thermo-resistant lactococcal virulent phage P1532 used in this study was obtained from the Félix d 'Hérelle Reference Center for Bacterial Viruses (www.phage.ulaval.ca). P1532 phage was amplified on L. lactis 7-18 that was initially grown in GM17 until an optical density at 600 nm of 0.1. Then, 10 mM of CaCl2 was added as well as an approximately 105 PFU/ml of phage P1532. ……….When the culture was completely clear, the phage lysate was filtered using a 0.45-μm syringe filter and then stored at 4 °C until further use.