It is possible that we had contamination in our high titer lysate fluid (the fluid which was highly concentrated with phage particles) or that our phage creates larger or smaller plaques depending on the concentrations present on the agar plate, although the later seems much more unlikely.
What were your expected outcomes when going into this experiment? Along with that, was there any previous research in this field that could have led you to your expected outcomes?
We expected to be able to isolate only a single species of phage, however as you can see we ended with multiple. Originally, we had isolated only a single species, and we believe that there may have been contamination which caused our final results.
Phage have the ability to infect bacteria, and thus if you are infected with multidrug resistant bacteria, it is possible that you could use a phage to cure the infection. There is currently a massive amount of research going on, looking at how viable the treatment is (injecting millions of viruses into people to cure bacterial infections makes some people uneasy), however there have been a handful of patients who have successfully had MDR infections treated with phage.
Laura, we believe these plaques appeared in our plates for one of two reasons. The first guess is that we had contamination somewhere in our high titer lysate experiment with another species of phage. The other hypothesis, which is unlikely, is that our phage has different plaque morphology depending on the concentrations of phage. Unfortunately, we were unable to determine what caused the larger plaques but we believe that it is most likely due to contamination.
What are some possible reasons that the second phage you found in your serial dilutions did not show plaques in your first two experiments?
It is possible that we had contamination in our high titer lysate fluid (the fluid which was highly concentrated with phage particles) or that our phage creates larger or smaller plaques depending on the concentrations present on the agar plate, although the later seems much more unlikely.
What were your expected outcomes when going into this experiment? Along with that, was there any previous research in this field that could have led you to your expected outcomes?
We expected to be able to isolate only a single species of phage, however as you can see we ended with multiple. Originally, we had isolated only a single species, and we believe that there may have been contamination which caused our final results.
How exactly can phages be used to help with MDR?
Phage have the ability to infect bacteria, and thus if you are infected with multidrug resistant bacteria, it is possible that you could use a phage to cure the infection. There is currently a massive amount of research going on, looking at how viable the treatment is (injecting millions of viruses into people to cure bacterial infections makes some people uneasy), however there have been a handful of patients who have successfully had MDR infections treated with phage.
What are the possible reasons for the large plaques that had not previously been seen?
Laura, we believe these plaques appeared in our plates for one of two reasons. The first guess is that we had contamination somewhere in our high titer lysate experiment with another species of phage. The other hypothesis, which is unlikely, is that our phage has different plaque morphology depending on the concentrations of phage. Unfortunately, we were unable to determine what caused the larger plaques but we believe that it is most likely due to contamination.