By Pooja Toshniwal PahariaJan 10 2023Reviewed by Aimee Molineux In a recent review published in Cell, researchers presented an overview of bacteriophage treatment, including mechanisms, types, design and applications of bacteriophage therapy.
Introduction to bacteriophage biology Bacteriophages are natural bacterial predators that evolved simultaneously with bacterial organisms for billions of years. Initially used by Felix d’Herelle in 1917 to treat bacterial dysentery among children, bacteriophage therapy has been extensively utilized for treating infections caused by bacteria among animals and humans, before penicillin use.
The majority of bacteriophages are either temperate or lytic. The lytic type of phages kills a very high percentage of bacterial cells they infect, and are, therefore, used as therapeutics. In the case of an infection, the lytic type of bacteriophages pursues one developmental program that involves gene expression in the initial phage, genomic replication, late bacteriolytic virion structure expression and gene assembly, packaged particle assembly, and lastly, lysis of bacteria.
Phage genome engineering involves building engineered phages and recovering desired progeny from the parenteral strain pool. Homologous genomic engineering techniques are used in vivo with CRISPR -Cas system-based counterselection. The homologous genetic recombination technique involves recombining phage DNA with the homologous area on plasmid deoxyribonucleic acid.