Phages as Promising Biomedical Tools
Journal Title: Biomedical Journal of Scientific & Technical Research (BJSTR) - Year 2018, Vol 10, Issue 2
Abstract
Bateriophages, natural killers of bacteria, are nowadays interesting tools in biomedical fields. Indeed, phages can be used in prevention, diagnosis, and as treatment against bacterial diseases. Interestingly, new phage technology allow them to be used against other pathogens like fungi and other viruses. Going beyond, bacteriophages can be even modified to specifically treat tumour cells. The large potential of phages as biomedical tools is increasing, thanks to their easy manipulation, high specificity, and low production cost. Nevertheless, ethical concerns and regulatory protocols should be revised in order to give trust to these applications and increase the general acceptance.Bacteriophages, also known as phages, are natural predators of bacteria. Phages were discovered one century ago by Frederick Twort [1] and Felix d'Herelle [2] independently. After their discovery, phages were commonly used as therapeutic tools and successfully used to treat bacterial diseases, as dysenthery and cholera. Unfortunately, antibiotics were rapidly spread as main treatment and phage therapy was restricted to Eastern countries, were antibiotics were not allowed [3]. Phages present an enormous diversity compared with other organisms. Their particles contain nucleic acid (RNA or DNA), single o double stranded, circular or linear, segmented or unsegmented, and large number of morphologies have been observed. In addition, phages can be divided following their biological cycle, mainly as lytic or temperate phages (alternatives of cycles have been also reported) [4]. Phages have been extensively used to understand fundamental biological processes such as replication, transcription, and translation. Noteworthy, a large amount of phage products are commonly used as reagents in research, like ligases and polymerases. Phage technology is also increasing rapidly. The recently awarded with the Nobel prize George P. Smith, developed a method using phages as vectors for gene cloning or expression, known as phage display [5]. This technique is of special interest since allows to link genotype to phenotype physically in a single particle. This technology has many applications including drug discovery, antibody engineering, or antiviral research. For all these reasons, phages are recently increasing their interest due to their potential applications in medical fields. In addition, lack of immunogenicity of phages makes them safe for clinical uses, although phage antigens can be potentially able to trigger humoral and cell-mediated immune responses [6]. However, this can be a double edged sword, since highly immunogenic phages could be potentially used as vaccine candidates [7]. Here, I am going to summarize some interesting applications of phages in clinics, including prevention, diagnosis, and treatment (Figure 1).
Authors and Affiliations
Pilar Domingo Calap
Keywords
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- EP ID EP591893
- DOI 10.26717/BJSTR.2018.10.001936
- Views 212
- Downloads 0
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