The evolution of bacteriophage life-history traits: Does host physiology control the success of virulent and temperate strategies?

噬菌体生命史特征的进化：宿主生理学是否控制毒性和温和策略的成功？

• 批准号: 2391849
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Warwick
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2020 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2391849
• 关键词: evolution; bacteriophage; life; history; traits

Bacteriophages are one of the most promising alternatives to antibiotics and provide an effective tool for treating multi-drug resistant bacterial infections. Recent use of bacteriophage as drugs of last resort demonstrate they are effective in treating morbidity associated with chronic Mycobacterium infections. Yet many bacteriophages do not kill their hosts, instead lying dormant as genomic prophages. This is a major limitation of phage therapy, as it is not yet clear why different life-style strategies dominate within different hosts and environments. By using molecular cloning and chemostat based assays I will test various hypotheses that may explain variation in phage life-history traits. This should help inform future approaches to engineer phages for the next generation of phage therapy and highlight the most appropriate clinical systems for their effective use.

噬菌体是抗生素最有前途的替代品之一，并为治疗多药物耐药细菌感染提供了有效的工具。最近将噬菌体用作最后度假胜地的药物表明它们有效治疗与慢性分枝杆菌感染相关的发病率。然而，许多噬菌体不会杀死他们的宿主，而是作为基因组预言处于休眠状态。这是噬菌体疗法的主要局限性，因为尚不清楚为什么在不同的宿主和环境中占主导地位的不同生活方式策略。通过使用分子克隆和基于化学恒定的测定法，我将测试各种假设，这些假设可能解释了噬菌体生活历史特征的变化。这将有助于为未来的方法提供噬菌体的未来方法，以进行下一代噬菌体疗法，并突出显示其有效使用的最合适的临床系统。