Bacteriophages, also known as phages, are a group of viruses that can infect and multiply within bacterial cells and that, when they come out, promote their destruction.
Bacteriophages are present in different environments and can be isolated from water, soil, food and even other microorganisms. Although they may also be present in the body, mainly in the skin, in the oral cavity, in the lungs and in the urinary and gastrointestinal systems, bacteriophages do not cause diseases or modifications in the human body, as they have a preference for prokaryotes. cells, that is, less evolved, such as bacteria.
- In addition.
- They are able to stimulate the immune response of the organism.
- So they cannot act on the microorganisms responsible for the proper functioning of the organism.
- In addition to having a strong specificity in front of its host.
- I.
- E.
- The pathogen.
- Microorganism.
- Thus.
- Bacteria that are part of the microbiome are not destroyed due to the positive relationship between the bacteriophages and the immune system.
Bacteriophages are viruses that can be found in different environments, including the human body, but do not cause changes or diseases because they have no specificity for the cells that make up the body. Other characteristics of bacteriophage are:
The classification of bacteriophages is still under study, however, some properties may be useful for the differentiation and classification of bacteriophages, such as the type of genetic material, morphology, genomic characteristics and physical-chemical characteristics.
Lytic and lysogenic cycles are cycles of multiplication of bacteriophages upon contact with the bacterial cell and can be differentiated according to the behavior of the virus.
The lithic cycle is one in which, after the injection of the genetic material of the bacteriophage into the bacterial cell, replication and the formation of new bacteriophages occurs that, when exited, destroy the bacterial cell. Then, in general, the cycle develops as follows:
In the lysogenic cycle, the genetic material of the bacteriophage is incorporated into that of the bacteriophage, however this process may represent only the silence of the virulence genes of the bacteria, in addition to being a reversible process. This cycle is as follows:
Profagus is not active, i.e. its genes are not expressed and therefore do not cause negative changes for bacteria and this is a completely reversible process.
Because bacteriophages interact with the genetic material of bacteria and can promote their destruction, these viruses can be used in the study to develop new strategies to control multidisciplinary infections.
Phage therapy, also known as phage therapy, is a type of treatment that uses bacteriophages to fight bacterial infections, especially those caused by multidrug-resistant microorganisms. This type of treatment is safe because bacteriophages only act against pathogenic bacteria, thus preserving the person’s normal microbiota.
While this type of therapies have been described for years, it is only now that it is gaining importance in the literature due to the increase in the number of bacteria that do not respond to conventional antibiotic treatments.
However, although this is a favorable technique, phage therapy has some limitations. Each type of bacteriophage is specific to a specific bacteriophage, so these phages could not be used in isolation to fight infections caused by various microorganisms, but in this case a “phage cocktail” could be formulated according to the microorganisms identified as responsible for the infection. . In addition, mainly due to the lysogen cycle, bacteriophages can promote the transfer of resistant genes to bacteria, making treatment ineffective.