The bacteriophage virus can infect bacteria.
Viruses and bacteria
Before continuing with the definition, it is important to note that a virus is an organism made up of nucleic acids and proteins whose reproduction is only possible inside certain living cells, since it uses its metabolism.
A bacteria , meanwhile, is a microorganism composed of a single type of cell that lacks a differentiated nucleus.
General characteristics
Like the rest of the viruses, bacteriophages have their genetic material covered by proteins . Most of them are part of the order Caudovirales .
Bacteriophages, also known as phages , can have a genome made up of ribonucleic acid ( RNA ) or deoxyribonucleic acid ( DNA ). In some cases they have only four genes, while in others they can have more than a hundred.
The infectious process developed by bacteriophages constitutes their life cycle . It is possible to differentiate between a lysogenic cycle and a lytic cycle .
It should be noted that, since bacteriophages only act on bacteria and not on human cells, they have been used in medical research to treat bacterial diseases that affect people.
Bacteriophage therapy
After having discovered these viruses, the possibility arose of taking advantage of them for therapy , which is also known as phage . Its initial acceptance was very broad, and it enjoyed a period of application that began strongly but weakened since antibiotics appeared.
The use of bacteriophage therapy began in the 1940s, in the former Soviet Union , as a suitable alternative to the administration of antibiotics for bacterial infections. Since phages specialize in eliminating bacteria, the results were very satisfactory in this regard.
The two parts of the world in which the greatest volume of experience in the use of this therapy is gathered are the Eliava and Hirszfeld institutes, in Georgia and Poland respectively. In the first, they specialize in the preparation of bacteriophage cocktails , such as intestiphage and pyophage , which are used for therapeutic purposes to attack certain pathogenic bacteria.
At Hirszfeld, on the other hand, they develop preparations with a more personalized approach. Although these two institutes are the ones that have given the most evidence of the advantages of bacteriophages to treat infectious problems , their practices have not been approved at a global level in the scientific field.
Cycles
With the lysogenic cycle , the bacteriophage introduces its DNA into the chromosome of the bacteria it infects. In this way, its DNA is copied and transmitted with the DNA of the cell itself. The lytic cycle , on the other hand, implies that the bacteriophage generates multiple new copies in the cell of the infected bacteria until it explodes. This destruction allows the newly created viruses to be released and continue infecting other bodies.
The infectious process of the bacteriophage virus has a lysogenic and a lytic cycle.
A similarity that both present is that they have two phases, anchoring and penetration: in the first, the virus adheres to the wall of the other element, which can be a cell or a bacteria, using a number of different mechanisms ; In the second, it penetrates it with the purpose of introducing its nucleic acid inside.
We also have the eclipse phase of the lysogenic cycle, in which a recombination of the viral nucleic acid with the bacterial one takes place, followed by inactivity. The cell that receives the infection from a bacteriophage in this case is known as lysogenic , and can maintain this state indefinitely.