Bacteriophage Viruses
Source : Indian Express
GS II : Health
Overview
- News in Brief
- About Bacteriophage viruses
- Possibility of Phage therapy
Why in News ?
Scientists now talk of a virome all the different types of viruses we host in our bodies which contribute to health, much like the bacterial microbiome.
News in Brief
- There are 380 trillion virus particles in or on your body at this time, which is ten times more than there are bacteria.
- These viruses survive on our skin, remain inside the microorganisms in our stomachs, and hide in our blood, lungs, and skin.
- There are viruses that develop our immune systems and aid in the defence against infections; some even regulate gene expression during pregnancy.
- Bacteriophage viruses, which destroy bacteria in our microbiomes, make up the vast majority of viruses that live inside of humans.
About Bacteriophage viruses
- Any of a group of viruses that infect bacteria is referred to as a bacteriophage.
- Sometimes known as a phage or bacterial virus.
- Frederick W. Twort in Great Britain (1915) and Felix d’Herelle in France (1917) separately discovered bacteriophages.
How Bacteriophage viruses works?
- Phages are straightforward creatures .
- Like other viruses, are made up of a core of genetic material (nucleic acid) encased in a protein capsid.
- The nucleic acid may be either DNA or RNA.
- They may be double-stranded or single-stranded.
- They search out bacteria, stick on the surface of the bacterial cell, and then inject viral DNA inside the cell to complete their work.
- Once enough new viruses have been produced inside the bacterial cell as a result of the viral DNA replication, the bacterial cell explodes, releasing the fresh viral particles.
- This entire process just takes 30 minutes, thus one virus may multiplie into many in a matter of hours.
- The single-celled prokaryotic species known as archaea are also infected by bacteriophages.
What are the varieties of Bacteriophage viruses?
- There are thousands of different forms of phages or Bacteriophage.
- Each one may infect just one or a few different kinds of bacteria or archaea.
- Some of the virus families namely Inoviridae, Microviridae, Rudiviridae, and Tectiviridae.
Possibility of Phage therapy
- Since phage treatment did not work, it was all but forgotten about until antibiotics were discovered in the 1940s.
- Due to the scarcity of antibiotics in Soviet-era Russia, phages were used to treat bacterial infections.
- Georgia is a hot spot for phage tourism.
- Georgia has developed into one of the global centers of phage therapy.
What is challenge for Phage therapy?
- The lack of therapeutic standardisation is the main issue.
- Phage treatment needs to be properly adapted to the patient’s infection-causing microorganisms.
- Since different types of bacteria can cause illnesses, a variety of phages must be employed as a treatment.
- Also bacteria can become resistant to phage treatments as well.
- Bacteriophages are unlikely to replace antibiotic.
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