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Bacteriophages
A bacteriophage (), also known informally as a ''phage'' (), is a duplodnaviria virus that infects and replicates within bacteria and archaea. The term was derived from "bacteria" and the Greek φαγεῖν ('), meaning "to devour". Bacteriophages are composed of proteins that encapsulate a DNA or RNA genome, and may have structures that are either simple or elaborate. Their genomes may encode as few as four genes (e.g. MS2) and as many as hundreds of genes. Phages replicate within the bacterium following the injection of their genome into its cytoplasm. Bacteriophages are among the most common and diverse entities in the biosphere. Bacteriophages are ubiquitous viruses, found wherever bacteria exist. It is estimated there are more than 1031 bacteriophages on the planet, more than every other organism on Earth, including bacteria, combined. Viruses are the most abundant biological entity in the water column of the world's oceans, and the second largest component of biomas ...
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Bacteriophage P22 Casjens Lenk
A bacteriophage (), also known informally as a ''phage'' (), is a duplodnaviria virus that infects and replicates within bacteria and archaea. The term was derived from "bacteria" and the Greek φαγεῖν ('), meaning "to devour". Bacteriophages are composed of proteins that encapsulate a DNA or RNA genome, and may have structures that are either simple or elaborate. Their genomes may encode as few as four genes (e.g. MS2) and as many as hundreds of genes. Phages replicate within the bacterium following the injection of their genome into its cytoplasm. Bacteriophages are among the most common and diverse entities in the biosphere. Bacteriophages are ubiquitous viruses, found wherever bacteria exist. It is estimated there are more than 1031 bacteriophages on the planet, more than every other organism on Earth, including bacteria, combined. Viruses are the most abundant biological entity in the water column of the world's oceans, and the second largest component of biom ...
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Phage Therapy
Phage therapy, viral phage therapy, or phagotherapy is the therapeutic use of bacteriophages for the treatment of pathogenic bacterial infections. This therapeutic approach emerged at the beginning of the 20th century but was progressively replaced by the use of antibiotics in most parts of the world after the second world war. Bacteriophages, known as phages, are a form of virus that attach to bacterial cells and inject their genome into the cell. The bacteria's production of the viral genome interferes with its ability to function, halting the bacterial infection. The bacterial cell causing the infection is unable to reproduce, and instead produces additional phages. Phages are very selective in the strains of bacteria they are effective against. Advantages include reduced side-effects and reduced risk of the bacterium developing resistance since bacteriophages are much more specific than antibiotics. They are typically harmless not only to the host organism but also to ot ...
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Duplodnaviria
''Duplodnaviria'' is a realm of viruses that includes all double-stranded DNA viruses that encode the HK97 fold major capsid protein. The HK97 fold major capsid protein (HK97 MCP) is the primary component of the viral capsid, which stores the viral deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). Viruses in the realm also share a number of other characteristics, such as an icosahedral capsid, an opening in the viral capsid called a portal, a protease enzyme that empties the inside of the capsid prior to DNA packaging, and a terminase enzyme that packages viral DNA into the capsid. ''Duplodnaviria'' was established in 2019 based on the shared characteristics of viruses in the realm. There are two groups of viruses in ''Duplodnaviria'': tailed bacteriophages of the order ''Caudovirales'', which infect prokaryotes, and herpesviruses of the order ''Herpesvirales'', which infect animals. Tailed bacteriophages are very diverse and ubiquitous worldwide, and they may be the oldest lineage of viruses. Herp ...
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Virus
A virus is a submicroscopic infectious agent that replicates only inside the living cells of an organism. Viruses infect all life forms, from animals and plants to microorganisms, including bacteria and archaea. Since Dmitri Ivanovsky's 1892 article describing a non-bacterial pathogen infecting tobacco plants and the discovery of the tobacco mosaic virus by Martinus Beijerinck in 1898,Dimmock p. 4 more than 9,000 virus species have been described in detail of the millions of types of viruses in the environment. Viruses are found in almost every ecosystem on Earth and are the most numerous type of biological entity. The study of viruses is known as virology, a subspeciality of microbiology. When infected, a host cell is often forced to rapidly produce thousands of copies of the original virus. When not inside an infected cell or in the process of infecting a cell, viruses exist in the form of independent particles, or ''virions'', consisting of (i) the genetic mate ...
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Caudovirales
''Caudovirales'' is an order of viruses known as the tailed bacteriophages (''cauda'' is Latin for "tail"). Under the Baltimore classification scheme, the ''Caudovirales'' are group I viruses as they have double stranded DNA (dsDNA) genomes, which can be anywhere from 18,000 base pairs to 500,000 base pairs in length. The virus particles have a distinct shape; each virion has an icosahedral head that contains the viral genome, and is attached to a flexible tail by a connector protein. The order encompasses a wide range of viruses, many containing genes of similar nucleotide sequence and function. However, some tailed bacteriophage genomes can vary quite significantly in nucleotide sequence, even among the same genus. Due to their characteristic structure and possession of potentially homologous genes, it is believed these bacteriophages possess a common origin. There are 14 families, 73 subfamilies, 927 genera, and 2,814 species in the order. This makes ''Caudovirales'' th ...
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Antibiotics
An antibiotic is a type of antimicrobial substance active against bacteria. It is the most important type of antibacterial agent for fighting bacterial infections, and antibiotic medications are widely used in the treatment and prevention of such infections. They may either kill or inhibit the growth of bacteria. A limited number of antibiotics also possess antiprotozoal activity. Antibiotics are not effective against viruses such as the common cold or influenza; drugs which inhibit viruses are termed antiviral drugs or antivirals rather than antibiotics. Sometimes, the term ''antibiotic''—literally "opposing life", from the Greek roots ἀντι ''anti'', "against" and βίος ''bios'', "life"—is broadly used to refer to any substance used against microbes, but in the usual medical usage, antibiotics (such as penicillin) are those produced naturally (by one microorganism fighting another), whereas non-antibiotic antibacterials (such as sulfonamides and antisep ...
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Capsid
A capsid is the protein shell of a virus, enclosing its genetic material. It consists of several oligomeric (repeating) structural subunits made of protein called protomers. The observable 3-dimensional morphological subunits, which may or may not correspond to individual proteins, are called capsomeres. The proteins making up the capsid are called capsid proteins or viral coat proteins (VCP). The capsid and inner genome is called the nucleocapsid. Capsids are broadly classified according to their structure. The majority of the viruses have capsids with either helical or icosahedral structure. Some viruses, such as bacteriophages, have developed more complicated structures due to constraints of elasticity and electrostatics. The icosahedral shape, which has 20 equilateral triangular faces, approximates a sphere, while the helical shape resembles the shape of a spring, taking the space of a cylinder but not being a cylinder itself. The capsid faces may consist of one or m ...
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Archaea
Archaea ( ; singular archaeon ) is a domain of single-celled organisms. These microorganisms lack cell nuclei and are therefore prokaryotes. Archaea were initially classified as bacteria, receiving the name archaebacteria (in the Archaebacteria kingdom), but this term has fallen out of use. Archaeal cells have unique properties separating them from the other two domains, Bacteria and Eukaryota. Archaea are further divided into multiple recognized phyla. Classification is difficult because most have not been isolated in a laboratory and have been detected only by their gene sequences in environmental samples. Archaea and bacteria are generally similar in size and shape, although a few archaea have very different shapes, such as the flat, square cells of '' Haloquadratum walsbyi''. Despite this morphological similarity to bacteria, archaea possess genes and several metabolic pathways that are more closely related to those of eukaryotes, notably for the enzymes invo ...
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Multi-drug-resistant
Multiple drug resistance (MDR), multidrug resistance or multiresistance is antimicrobial resistance shown by a species of microorganism to at least one antimicrobial drug in three or more antimicrobial categories. Antimicrobial categories are classifications of antimicrobial agents based on their mode of action and specific to target organisms. The MDR types most threatening to public health are MDR bacteria that resist multiple antibiotics; other types include MDR viruses, parasites (resistant to multiple antifungal, antiviral, and antiparasitic drugs of a wide chemical variety). Recognizing different degrees of MDR in bacteria, the terms extensively drug-resistant (XDR) and pandrug-resistant (PDR) have been introduced. Extensively drug-resistant (XDR) is the non-susceptibility of one bacteria species to all antimicrobial agents except in two or less antimicrobial categories. Within XDR, pandrug-resistant (PDR) is the non-susceptibility of bacteria to all antimicrobial agents i ...
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Autographiviridae
''Autographiviridae'' is a family of viruses in the order ''Caudovirales''. Bacteria serve as natural hosts. There are 373 species in this family, assigned to 9 subfamilies and 133 genera. History Since the 1990s, the term "T7 supergroup" has been coined for the expanding group of bacteriophages related to coliphage T7, as members of the family '' Podoviridae''. Enterobacteriaceae phages SP6 and K1-5 were the first to be considered as an estranged subgroup of the "T7 supergroup". ''Pseudomonas'' phage phiKMV also shared commonalities at the genome organizational level. As such, based on the available morphological and proteomic data, this clade of viruses was established as a subfamily of the family '' Podoviridae''. The subfamily was later raised to the level of family in 2019. Etymology The name of this family, termed ''Autographiviridae'', refers to the “auto-graphein” or “self-transcribing” phages which encode their own (single subunit) RNA polymerase, a common char ...
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Belfryvirales
''Turriviridae'' is a family of viruses; it contains only one genus, ''Alphaturrivirus''. The archaea ''Sulfolobus solfataricus ''Saccharolobus solfataricus'' is a species of thermophilic archaeon. It was transferred from the genus ''Sulfolobus'' to the new genus ''Saccharolobus'' with the description of Saccharolobus caldissimus in 2018. It was first isolated and disco ...'' serve as natural hosts. There are two species in the genus ''Alphaturrivirus''. Taxonomy The genus contains the following species: * '' Sulfolobus turreted icosahedral virus 1'' Structure Viruses in ''Turriviridae'' have icosahedral geometries, and T=31 symmetry. The diameter is around 74 nm. Genomes are linear. Life cycle Viral replication is cytoplasmic. Entry into the host cell is achieved by adsorption into the host cell. DNA-templated transcription is the method of transcription. ''Sulfolobus solfataricus'' serves as the natural host. Transmission routes are passive diffusion. Referenc ...
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Enterobacteria Phage T2 Transmission Electron Micrograph
Enterobacteriaceae is a large family of Gram-negative bacteria. It was first proposed by Rahn in 1936, and now includes over 30 genera and more than 100 species. Its classification above the level of family is still a subject of debate, but one classification places it in the order Enterobacterales of the class Gammaproteobacteria in the phylum Pseudomonadota. In 2016, the description and members of this family were emended based on comparative genomic analyses by Adeolu et al. Enterobacteriaceae includes, along with many harmless symbionts, many of the more familiar pathogens, such as '' Salmonella'', ''Escherichia coli'', ''Klebsiella'', and ''Shigella''. Other disease-causing bacteria in this family include ''Enterobacter'' and '' Citrobacter''. Members of the Enterobacteriaceae can be trivially referred to as enterobacteria or "enteric bacteria",as several members live in the intestines of animals. In fact, the etymology of the family is enterobacterium with the suffix ...
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