I do think that would be a worthwhile experiment! Lytic phages are preferred over temperate bacteriophages for applications in phage therapy due to their ability to quickly undergo the lytic lifecycle. Phage therapy would allow an alternative to eliminating antibiotic resistant bacteria, so if a temperate bacteriophage like Spicy was able to inject a desired bacterial host that is resistant to antibiotic resistant bacteria, it would be worthwhile to mutate it to be lytic to allow it to be used as treatment.
What I mean by a temperate phage is that it undergoes the lysogenic lifecycle. Once injecting its viral DNA into a bacterial host cell, the temperate phage integrates its genome within the host cell’s chromosome in order for its viral DNA to be passed down through generations of bacteria. A lytic bacteriophage on the other hand would replicate its viral DNA within the host cell, assemble many new phages, and then lyse the host cell/ killing it.
do you think trying to mutate Spicy’s DNA into a lytic phage would be worth while in terms of an experiment?
I do think that would be a worthwhile experiment! Lytic phages are preferred over temperate bacteriophages for applications in phage therapy due to their ability to quickly undergo the lytic lifecycle. Phage therapy would allow an alternative to eliminating antibiotic resistant bacteria, so if a temperate bacteriophage like Spicy was able to inject a desired bacterial host that is resistant to antibiotic resistant bacteria, it would be worthwhile to mutate it to be lytic to allow it to be used as treatment.
What do you mean when you say the phage is temperate?
What I mean by a temperate phage is that it undergoes the lysogenic lifecycle. Once injecting its viral DNA into a bacterial host cell, the temperate phage integrates its genome within the host cell’s chromosome in order for its viral DNA to be passed down through generations of bacteria. A lytic bacteriophage on the other hand would replicate its viral DNA within the host cell, assemble many new phages, and then lyse the host cell/ killing it.