Bacterial Phage’s huge potential or a dead end?

[dimreepr]

What are the problems associated with bringing bacterial phage's to market? Is it just a case of keeping them alive long enough? Or are there any issues of possible mutations into something less desirable?

 

I hear through the grapevine that the Russians are running trials, though I have no idea of the validity of this.

Edited September 25, 2012 by dimreepr

[akh]

Dimreepr, are you asking specifically about phage therapies? As in treatment of bacterial infections? Just lookinjg for clarification, thx.

Edited September 25, 2012 by akh

[dimreepr]

Dimreepr, are you asking specifically about phage therapies? As in treatment of bacterial infections? Just lookinjg for clarification, thx.

 

In a word, yes. I have been told there is difficulty inkeeping bacteriophages alive long enough to get them to the

patient here in the west.

 

[CharonY]

Bacteriophages are not alive to begin with, they have to be kept active. The problem there is pretty much similar to keeping enzymes active, for example. Major problems include inconsistent (i.e. insufficient information regarding) efficiency, the problem of administering self-replicating entities and uncertainty regarding their safety (as they may evolve). In Russia and/or Georgia tests have been done, but I have not heard anything that makes it (in its current form) a good alternative to antibiotics.

 

Thoughts go into the direction of combo treatments (especially in cases with biofilm formation), but to my understanding it has not matured sufficiently.

[Jens]

There is an additional issue: In contrast to low molecular antibiotics the human immuno system will consider the bacteriophages as dangerous viruses (in 100% of the individuals). So you can treat an individual at maximum once. The second time you will get a huge immuno response (which might actually be dangerous) and human antibodies will mark them for destruction by other cells.

 

 

[dimreepr]

There is an additional issue: In contrast to low molecular antibiotics the human immuno system will consider the bacteriophages as dangerous viruses (in 100% of the individuals). So you can treat an individual at maximum once. The second time you will get a huge immuno response (which might actually be dangerous) and human antibodies will mark them for destruction by other cells.

 

 

 

 

A very good point and not one I'd previously considered, thank you +1. A dead end seems most likely now.

 

Bacteriophages are not alive to begin with, they have to be kept active. The problem there is pretty much similar to keeping enzymes active, for example. Major problems include inconsistent (i.e. insufficient information regarding) efficiency, the problem of administering self-replicating entities and uncertainty regarding their safety (as they may evolve). In Russia and/or Georgia tests have been done, but I have not heard anything that makes it (in its current form) a good alternative to antibiotics.

 

Thoughts go into the direction of combo treatments (especially in cases with biofilm formation), but to my understanding it has not matured sufficiently.

 

CharonY, at risk of succumbing to your expert knowledge, I used the word 'alive' because of this, maybe this thread would be more productive discussing this age old question?

[CharonY]

Ah yes, the giant viruse thingy. Excitement has died down a little bit. But to me the whole thing was more like PR thingy to garner more excitement. Personally I still consider them to be not alive but being mobile genetic elements, as they are basically replicators and have no metabolic activities to speak of. The fact that other virus can affect it, does not give much reason to reconsider this. Using a similiar logic you could call plasmids to be alive, as their structure can be altered by a number of other mobile elements, such as transposons and integrons.

What I do agree with, is that the boundary is artificial to begin with.

However, this distinction can be quite useful in discussing certain things. Keeping things alive is a good example, as it generally implies that one has to cater for certain residual metabolic activities (especially during resuscitation) whereas in the other case we would be thinking more in terms of structural integrity. But obviously their are always borderline examples that defy it.

[Jens]

Ah yes, the giant viruse thingy. Excitement has died down a little bit. But to me the whole thing was more like PR thingy to garner more excitement.

 

Even though I am in favor of a definition of life which includes viruses (see the Topic "definition of life" ) I agree this looks very much like PR only and does not make viruses more "alive". The title should have been "First case of a virus being a parasite to another virus." That is interesting enough.

[dimreepr]

OK so maybe a bad link to support my assertion, but the fact that virus’ evolve and contain DNA or RNA certainly calls into question the ‘just a chemical bag’ tag. Maybe this is more supportive.

 

 

[CharonY]

Technically, cells are also "just" bags with chemicals in them. It is again important to realize that definitions such as life are arbitrary and lines are drawn pretty much in dependence on viewpoint and context. From a biochemical perspective oftentimes one would add viruses. From a genetic and molecular biological perspective it depends on how much you emphasize metabolism and physiology. My specialty is closer to the latter and due to the limited physiological potential of viruses as opposed to even the simplest cells, I generally do not count them to the same group. Also, I have strongly genomic-driven view, which would categorize viruses in my mind more strongly to mobile genetic elements (though a similar approach but with a more evolution-centric perspective might see it different).

But in the end it boils down to semantics as the tag "alive" does not really add any crucial information in most cases.