In what other ways could you continue your characterization and investigation into your phage? How could you use its lysogenic behavior in other applications?
The next steps for Gregory’s research life would be to complete restriction digest to determine cluster, then use the cluster results to find the right buffers to perform a PCR test. The PCR test would enable us to verify its culster assignment (we’d get a positive result for testing the cluster we hypothesized it belonged to), and from there we could test superinfection immunity to determine its genomic similarity to other singular phages within its cluster. The end goal is to develop a complete, clear picture of its whole genome to add to phamerator. Thanks for asking!
No, I love it! I named him Gregory for a few reasons. One, I saw the name Gregary, or something similar, and I felt frustrated that it wasn’t Gregory when I expected it to be, so stubbornness. Also, it was a nice name that I figured may make someone happy if they read it. There were plenty of complicated names and I figured one day a student may be assigned Gregory for some research and be stoked that it had a simple name. It was also easy to remember, and finally, I’m not quite sure where the ‘differentiation of life’ is (what counts as alive and what doesn’t in terms of biology), so oftentimes when I see a plant, smell bacteria, or, in this case, when I grew and saw my phage, I will, in sort of an absurdist humor or zen type way (take your pick), say ‘hello, you. i hope you’re doing good.’ because honestly, i dunno whether phages have experience or not right now. so it was a sort of personification at its core. I could go on. But I think I covered it:)
In terms of future direction, what other phages would you consider testing this phage with to see how they behave together and how do you think the results will differ?
Great question! Since we don’t know which cluster this phage belongs to until our restriction digest is completed, it’s hard to make a preliminary assumption on specific clusters. In a superinfection immunity test, we would want to pick siphoviridae phages, but for sake of experimentation we could really pick any cluster phage and see how they react together. I hypothesize that it would not be able to superinfect other siphoviridae phages, but that it would be able to superinfect myoviridae phages. There could be some interesting synergy reactions between siphoviridae phages and myoviridae phages in the same bacterial cell, but I’ve no leads as to what they could look like. Faster and more consistent lysis, I would guess, i.e. a faster elimination of infections due to the combined functions of the phage cocktail. Unfortunately, I’m a little fuzzy on the details for this question. Thank you for asking!
In what other ways could you continue your characterization and investigation into your phage? How could you use its lysogenic behavior in other applications?
The next steps for Gregory’s research life would be to complete restriction digest to determine cluster, then use the cluster results to find the right buffers to perform a PCR test. The PCR test would enable us to verify its culster assignment (we’d get a positive result for testing the cluster we hypothesized it belonged to), and from there we could test superinfection immunity to determine its genomic similarity to other singular phages within its cluster. The end goal is to develop a complete, clear picture of its whole genome to add to phamerator. Thanks for asking!
This is a little silly question, but why name him Gregory?
No, I love it! I named him Gregory for a few reasons. One, I saw the name Gregary, or something similar, and I felt frustrated that it wasn’t Gregory when I expected it to be, so stubbornness. Also, it was a nice name that I figured may make someone happy if they read it. There were plenty of complicated names and I figured one day a student may be assigned Gregory for some research and be stoked that it had a simple name. It was also easy to remember, and finally, I’m not quite sure where the ‘differentiation of life’ is (what counts as alive and what doesn’t in terms of biology), so oftentimes when I see a plant, smell bacteria, or, in this case, when I grew and saw my phage, I will, in sort of an absurdist humor or zen type way (take your pick), say ‘hello, you. i hope you’re doing good.’ because honestly, i dunno whether phages have experience or not right now. so it was a sort of personification at its core. I could go on. But I think I covered it:)
In terms of future direction, what other phages would you consider testing this phage with to see how they behave together and how do you think the results will differ?
Great question! Since we don’t know which cluster this phage belongs to until our restriction digest is completed, it’s hard to make a preliminary assumption on specific clusters. In a superinfection immunity test, we would want to pick siphoviridae phages, but for sake of experimentation we could really pick any cluster phage and see how they react together. I hypothesize that it would not be able to superinfect other siphoviridae phages, but that it would be able to superinfect myoviridae phages. There could be some interesting synergy reactions between siphoviridae phages and myoviridae phages in the same bacterial cell, but I’ve no leads as to what they could look like. Faster and more consistent lysis, I would guess, i.e. a faster elimination of infections due to the combined functions of the phage cocktail. Unfortunately, I’m a little fuzzy on the details for this question. Thank you for asking!