We have been using
antibiotic for about hundreds of years and during that time bacteria have
learnt to become resistant towards antibiotic. Drug resistant bacteria one of
the most serious public health issue we have been facing today. We are losing
the ability to treat infection. It is pretty serious that some bugs right now
are resistant to almost all kind of antibiotics. Bye the year 2050, which is
not so far, will die more people due to antibiotic resistant infection and
dying currently from the cancer. So, what is happening over the year, is the overuse
of antibiotics. In the face of a loss of life-saving antibiotics and the lack
of new ones, researchers have started the search for alternative means of
fighting bacterial pathogens and bacteriophage is one of the weapons people are
now using to treat infections.
pic source: motherboard
‘Bacteriophages’ or ‘Phages’ for short are viruses that
destroy specific bacteria. Proponents claim that bacteriophages can target and kill
the most antibiotic resistant bacteria. Dismissed by scientists for decades as
fringe, phage therapy is gaining increased consideration in Western countries,
including the USA.
pic source: motherboard
There are 10 to 100 million of phage in every gram of soil. Phage
controls the biosphere, the control the environment because they are
controlling the bacteria that are in the environment. The phage infects the
bacteria and injects their DNA into them and produces more phages and
eventually comes out by destroying bacterial cell. They get more progeny and
those progeny infect other bacteria. Phages are the original antibiotic in a
sense because before antibiotic are developed people started to use phage as a
way to control bacterial infection. Just at the same time antibiotics were
discovered then they shifted to antibiotic development as a process to phage development.
Phages are no denying right now because People are seeing that resistant issues
and they are going back to their roots. The Eastern European countries over
these years, the one area of the world, kept phages to save their life.
pic source: motherboard
So, how phages destroy the bacterial cell?
‘Lysin’ is the ultimate kill. Lysine is an enzyme produce by
the bacteriophage. Enzyme goes to the cell wall, punches the hole on the
bacterial cell wall. The phages are using it from the inside and researchers
are using just purified enzyme from outside to explode the organisms.
pic source: motherboard
There is an electron micrographic are given below. It shows, after
adding lysin enzyme, if wait for a minute, it will cut a hole at any side of
bacteria resulting cytoplasm come out, eventually dead of bacteria and this
called dead bug. The activity of lysine enzyme is just like punching out a balloon.
pic source: motherboard
Lysin expanded, has been developed over the years against MRSA,
once it casing major problem in hospital, group Group A Streptococci, organism
causing strepto, Group B Streptococci, organisms cause neonatal meningitis, Aciniotobacter,
organisms that causes infection in burn patients of hospital. So we have
enzymes that have effect against most of the diseases. Although, it is not a
silver bullet. The bacteria will eventually learn how to become resistance to lysine.
But it will take a little bit longer for them to do that. It will take those
100 to 200 years to become resistant to the lysine but that buys us no more
time.
Written by Md. Rayhan Mahmud
Admin of Microbial World
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