How can bacteriophages be used to detect the presence of a pathogen?

How can bacteriophages be used to detect the presence of a pathogen?

Bacteriophages present ideal tools which can be used for bacterial detection. These viruses have co-evolved with their bacterial hosts to recognize and infect their target cells with an extraordinary specificity that can be harnessed for various rapid detection formats.

How are bacteriophages detected?

Methods for Detection of Infectious Bacteriophages Plaque counting is considered the golden standard for phage enumeration. The double agar overlay assay (DLA) allows localized phage-host contact in a confined environment (Petri dish) containing two layers of agar on top of each other.

What is bacteriophage testing?

Bacteriophage Titer. This test is offered to evaluate the concentration of phage contaminants in a E. coli bacterial cell bank. Phage Identification. Next generation sequencing method is used for de novo construction of contaminating phage sequence, which is then blasted against NCBI database for highest match.

Which reporter gene system is used for rapid identification of E coli in drinking water?

In the field of foodborne pathogen detection, LAMP was used for the first time to detect stxA2 gene in Escherichia coli O157:H7 (Maruyama et al., 2003). Since then, LAMP has been used for the detection of various foodborne pathogens due to its rapidity and sensitivity.

How do you test phage?

A spot test is a quick way to check whether a phage sample can infect a bacterium by placing a small drop or “spot” of phage onto a plate inoculated with the bacterium. This test will determine if the putative plaque will propagate phage.

What is the life cycle of a bacteriophage?

Life cycles of bacteriophages During infection a phage attaches to a bacterium and inserts its genetic material into the cell. After that a phage usually follows one of two life cycles, lytic (virulent) or lysogenic (temperate).

How do you detect pathogens?

Established methods in pathogen detection. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR), culture and colony counting methods as well as immunology-based methods are the most common tools used for pathogen detection. They involve DNA analysis, counting of bacteria and antigen–antibody interactions, respectively.

Which test is used for detecting pathogens in water Mcq?

The most basic test for bacterial contamination of a water supply is the test for total coliform bacteria. Total coliform counts give a general indication of the sanitary condition of a water supply.

Which is the test for determining susceptibility of phages?

Microplate-Test for the Rapid Determination of Bacteriophage-Susceptibility of Campylobacter Isolates—Development and Validation.

What is bacteriophage-based pathogen detection?

Bacteriophage-based pathogen detection Considered the most abundant organism on Earth, at a population approaching 10(31), bacteriophage, or phage for short, mediate interactions with myriad bacterial hosts that has for decades been exploited in phage typing schemes for signature identification of clinical, food-borne, and water-borne pa …

What is a bacteriophage?

Considered the most abundant organism on Earth, at a population approaching 10(31), bacteriophage, or phage for short, mediate interactions with myriad bacterial hosts that has for decades been exploited in phage typing schemes for signature identification of clinical, food-borne, and water-borne pathogens.

Why use a phage virion as a probe?

At the same time this feature makes phage virions or RBPs an excellent choice for the development of probes capable of selectively capturing bacteria on solid surfaces with subsequent quick and automatic detection of the binding event.

How do phage hosts recognize bacteria?

The precision of host recognition in phages is imparted by the receptor binding proteins (RBPs) that are often located in the tail-spike or tail fiber protein assemblies of the virions. Phage host recognition specificity has been traditionally exploited for bacterial typing using laborious and time consuming bacterial growth assays.