Great question! Big Ounce is the name of a famous prairie dog that would eat anything put in front of it. We figured the name would be fitting after creating a web-pattern plate where the phage lysed 100% of the bacteria on the plate. We have planned to submit Big Ounce to the SEA phage Archive where its genome can be sequenced and compared to other genomes in their database. If there is no match then Big Ounce will be a new phage!
Lytic phages do not exchange DNA to the bacterial genome, they only lyse bacteria. Other phages have temperate cycles which means that they don’t immediately lyse the bacteria they infect which causes cloudiness and halos to form along the edges of a plaque.
Great question! Understanding a phage’s mutability would help indicate the effectiveness of this phage as an antibiotic alternative. Mutability is determined through the mutagenesis experiments.
What is the significance of the name Big Ounce? What kind of conclusive characterization will tell you if it a newly identified bacteriophage?
Great question! Big Ounce is the name of a famous prairie dog that would eat anything put in front of it. We figured the name would be fitting after creating a web-pattern plate where the phage lysed 100% of the bacteria on the plate. We have planned to submit Big Ounce to the SEA phage Archive where its genome can be sequenced and compared to other genomes in their database. If there is no match then Big Ounce will be a new phage!
What would have you gained from the gained from the DNA sequencing/getting them to anneal to the DNA?
We would have determined the phage’s cluster since the primers that anneal belong to specific clusters.
How exactly does having clear plaques mean the phage is lytic?
Lytic phages do not exchange DNA to the bacterial genome, they only lyse bacteria. Other phages have temperate cycles which means that they don’t immediately lyse the bacteria they infect which causes cloudiness and halos to form along the edges of a plaque.
Why would studying with mutagenesis to learn the frequency and phenotypes of induced mutations be useful?
Great question! Understanding a phage’s mutability would help indicate the effectiveness of this phage as an antibiotic alternative. Mutability is determined through the mutagenesis experiments.