Bacteriophages
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Bacteriophages
A bacteriophage (), also known informally as a phage (), is a virus that infects and replicates within bacteria. The term is derived . 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 biomass after prokaryotes, where up to 9x108 virions per millilitre have been found in microbial mats at t ...
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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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Bacteriophage P22 Casjens Lenk
A bacteriophage (), also known informally as a phage (), is a virus that infects and replicates within bacteria. The term is derived . 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 biomass after prokaryotes, where up to 9x108 virions per millilitre have been found in microbial mats at t ...
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Virus
A virus is a submicroscopic infectious agent that replicates only inside the living Cell (biology), cells of an organism. Viruses infect all life forms, from animals and plants to microorganisms, including bacteria and archaea. Viruses are found in almost every ecosystem on Earth and are the most numerous type of biological entity. 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, more than 16,000 of the millions of List of virus species, virus species have been described in detail. 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 viral particles, or ''virions'', consisting of (i) genetic material, i.e., long ...
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T4 Bacteriophage
Escherichia virus T4 is a species of bacteriophages that infect ''Escherichia coli'' bacteria. It is a double-stranded DNA virus in the subfamily '' Tevenvirinae'' of the family '' Straboviridae''. T4 is capable of undergoing only a lytic life cycle and not the lysogenic life cycle. The species was formerly named T-even bacteriophage, a name which also encompasses, among other strains (or isolates), Enterobacteria phage T2, Enterobacteria phage T4 and Enterobacteria phage T6. Use in research Dating back to the 1940s and continuing today, T-even phages are considered the best studied model organisms. Model organisms are usually required to be simple with as few as five genes. Yet, T-even phages are in fact among the largest and highest complexity virus, in which these phage's genetic information is made up of around 300 genes. Coincident with their complexity, T-even viruses were found to have the unusual base hydroxymethylcytosine (HMC) in place of the nucleic acid base ...
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Caudoviricetes
''Caudoviricetes'' is a class of viruses known as tailed viruses and head-tail viruses (''cauda'' is Latin for "tail"). It is the sole representative of its own phylum, ''Uroviricota'' (from ''ouros'' (ουρος), a Greek word for "tailed" + -viricota). Under the Baltimore classification scheme, the ''Caudoviricetes'' 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 viruse ...
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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 pathogenic bacteria, bacterial infections, and antibiotic medications are widely used in the therapy, treatment and antibiotic prophylaxis, prevention of such infections. They may either bactericide, kill or bacteriostatic agent, inhibit the growth of bacteria. A limited number of antibiotics also possess antiprotozoal activity. Antibiotics are not effective against viruses such as the ones which cause the common cold or influenza. Drugs which inhibit growth of viruses are termed antiviral drugs or antivirals. Antibiotics are also not effective against fungi. Drugs which inhibit growth of fungi are called antifungal drugs. Sometimes, the term ''antibiotic''—literally "opposing life", from the Greek language, Greek roots ἀντι ''anti'', "against" and βίος ''bios'', "life"—is broadly used to refer to any substance used against ...
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Vidaverviricetes
Cystoviruses are a family of double-stranded RNA viruses that infect bacteria. They constitute the family ''Cystoviridae''. The name of the group c''ysto'' derives from Greek ''kystis'' which means bladder or sack. There are seven genera in this family. Discovery Pseudomonas virus phi6 was the first virus in this family to be discovered and was initially characterized in 1973 by Anne Vidaver at the University of Nebraska. She found that when she cultured the bacterial strain '' Pseudomonas phaseolicola'' HB1OY with halo blight infected bean straw, cytopathic effects were detected in cultured lawns, indicating that there was a lytic microbe or bacteriophage present. In 1999, phi7–14 were identified by the laboratory of Leonard Mindich at the Public Health Research Institute associated with New York University. They did this by culturing various leaves in Lysogeny Broth and then plating the broth on lawns of '' Pseudomonas syringae pv phaseolicola''. They were able to identi ...
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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 virus genomic component inside the capsid, along with occasionally present virus core protein, is called the virus core. The capsid and core together are referred to as a nucleocapsid (cf. also virion). 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 th ...
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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 a ...
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Leviviricetes
''Leviviricetes'' is a class of viruses, which infect prokaryotes. Most of these bacteriophages were discovered by metagenomics Metagenomics is the study of all genetics, genetic material from all organisms in a particular environment, providing insights into their composition, diversity, and functional potential. Metagenomics has allowed researchers to profile the mic .... Taxonomy ''Leviviricetes'' contains two orders and five genera unassigned to an order and family. This is shown hereafter: Orders: * '' Norzivirales'' * '' Timlovirales'' Unassigned genera: * '' Grandbuvirus'' * '' Mahrahvirus'' * '' Nicedsevirus'' * '' Nordovirus'' * '' Skrubnovirus'' References Virus classes {{virus-stub ...
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Riboviria
''Riboviria'' is a Realm (virology), realm of viruses that includes all viruses that use a homologous RNA-dependent polymerase for replication. It includes RNA viruses that Genetic code, encode an RNA-dependent RNA polymerase, as well as Pararnavirae, reverse-transcribing viruses (with either RNA or DNA genomes) that encode an Reverse transcriptase, RNA-dependent DNA polymerase. RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp), also called RNA replicase, produces RNA (ribonucleic acid) from RNA. RNA-dependent DNA polymerase (RdDp), also called reverse transcriptase (RT), produces DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) from RNA. These enzymes are essential for Viral replication, replicating the viral genome and Transcription (biology), transcribing viral genes into messenger RNA (mRNA) for Translation (biology), translation of viral proteins. ''Riboviria'' was established in 2018 to accommodate all RdRp-encoding RNA viruses and was expanded a year later to also include RdDp-encoding viruses. These two grou ...
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Sangervirae
''Microviridae'' is a family of bacteriophages with a single-stranded DNA genome. The name of this family is derived from the ancient Greek word (), meaning "small". This refers to the size of their genomes, which are among the smallest of the DNA viruses. Enterobacteria, intracellular parasitic bacteria, and spiroplasma serve as natural hosts. There are 22 species in this family, divided among seven genera and two subfamilies. Virology The virions are non-enveloped, round with an icosahedral symmetry (T = 1). They have a diameter between 25 and 27 nanometers and lack tails. Each virion has 60 copies each of the F, G, and J proteins and 12 copies of the H protein. They have 12 pentagonal trumpet-shaped pentamers (~7.1 nm wide × 3.8 nm high), each of which is composed of 5 copies of the G and one of the H protein. Viruses in this family replicate their genomes via a rolling circle mechanism and encode dedicated RCR initiation proteins.Keegstra W, Baas PD, Jansz HS (19 ...
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