Hi Ashtyn! The contamination was only on the outside of the plates and didn’t contaminate more than 50% of the plate. We determined that the plaques were fine to use because of the small concentration of contamination on the plates.
In what ways can your temperate phage be used for further research, given that it can stay dormant after infection? How does this compare to lytic phages?
In phage therapy research right now, temperate phages aren’t being used in many phage therapy trials but research is being conducted to determine if a temperate phage can be induced into a lytic lifecycle, so this phage could be used in experimental trials.
I was wondering if you thought it was possible you isolated two phages and that the bigger plaques were just masking a smaller plaque? Can you speak to this idea at all and about how likely it could be?
Hi Colin! There was a point in the experiment where we had two phages present in our sample and we chose to redo plaque streaks to isolate the smaller plaques. Im not sure about the larger plaques “masking” the smaller plaques because both are identifiable on the plate. We saw a clear difference in the size of the plaques present which allowed us to take a step back and evaluate how to move forward, and we chose to redo plaque streak to isolate one of the phages present.
Lytic phages are preferred for use in phage therapy over temperate phages because a lytic phage is able to lyse and kill the cell whereas a temperate phage just uses the host genome to replicate. The temperate phage can be engineered to be used in phage therapy, which could be done with my phage in the future.
Hi Katie! I loved your presentation, how did you determine that the contamination still provided results and was not detrimental to the experiment?
Hi Ashtyn! The contamination was only on the outside of the plates and didn’t contaminate more than 50% of the plate. We determined that the plaques were fine to use because of the small concentration of contamination on the plates.
In what ways can your temperate phage be used for further research, given that it can stay dormant after infection? How does this compare to lytic phages?
In phage therapy research right now, temperate phages aren’t being used in many phage therapy trials but research is being conducted to determine if a temperate phage can be induced into a lytic lifecycle, so this phage could be used in experimental trials.
I was wondering if you thought it was possible you isolated two phages and that the bigger plaques were just masking a smaller plaque? Can you speak to this idea at all and about how likely it could be?
Hi Colin! There was a point in the experiment where we had two phages present in our sample and we chose to redo plaque streaks to isolate the smaller plaques. Im not sure about the larger plaques “masking” the smaller plaques because both are identifiable on the plate. We saw a clear difference in the size of the plaques present which allowed us to take a step back and evaluate how to move forward, and we chose to redo plaque streak to isolate one of the phages present.
How does a temperature phage compare to a lytic phage as far as gene therapy goes? How would you use your temperate phage in the future?
Lytic phages are preferred for use in phage therapy over temperate phages because a lytic phage is able to lyse and kill the cell whereas a temperate phage just uses the host genome to replicate. The temperate phage can be engineered to be used in phage therapy, which could be done with my phage in the future.