We’d still want to continue characterizing it (PCR/Restriction digest/cluster assignment), and the host range analysis would be extra important – lytic phage are more useful for phage therapy, meaning it would be useful to know whether Draw5 could infect pathogenic bacteria like M. tuberculosis or M. leprae. We wouldn’t be able to do an immunity assay, though, since lytic phage don’t form lysogens.
You mentioned that lytic phages can be used in medicine. I was wondering if the phage being siphoviridae vs myoviridae can affect how effective the lytic phages can be, or if the structure is not important when it comes to phage therapy.
Not to my knowledge, although I could be wrong – the main factors in how effective a phage is at treating infections are the phage’s infectivity and whether it’s lytic, and I don’t know that siphoviridae/myoviridae morphology affects either of these very much.
We used the easiest plaques – the first plaque streak contained those ~1mm cloudy ones, and some much smaller plaques which would’ve been harder to accurately streak from.
How would your future directions have changed had this phage been a lytic phage instead of a temperate phage?
We’d still want to continue characterizing it (PCR/Restriction digest/cluster assignment), and the host range analysis would be extra important – lytic phage are more useful for phage therapy, meaning it would be useful to know whether Draw5 could infect pathogenic bacteria like M. tuberculosis or M. leprae. We wouldn’t be able to do an immunity assay, though, since lytic phage don’t form lysogens.
You mentioned that lytic phages can be used in medicine. I was wondering if the phage being siphoviridae vs myoviridae can affect how effective the lytic phages can be, or if the structure is not important when it comes to phage therapy.
Not to my knowledge, although I could be wrong – the main factors in how effective a phage is at treating infections are the phage’s infectivity and whether it’s lytic, and I don’t know that siphoviridae/myoviridae morphology affects either of these very much.
How did you determine which plaque you were gonna use for the second plaque streak?
We used the easiest plaques – the first plaque streak contained those ~1mm cloudy ones, and some much smaller plaques which would’ve been harder to accurately streak from.