Phage Host Range Assay

Creative Biolabs has been a long-term expert in the field of phage therapy. Based on years of experience and advanced platforms, we would try our best to provide a customized proposal to meet your project requirements in quality, timeline, and budget.

Background of Phage Host Range

The phage host range can be defined as the bacterial genera, species, and strains that the bacteriophage can lyse. Host range is one of the most important biological characteristics of a particular phage and each phage has its own specific host range. Studies have shown that some phages can only infect one or a few bacterial strains, while others can infect multiple bacterial strains from different genera. This can be influenced by multiple factors, such as the specificity of phages' host binding proteins, phage-resistance mechanisms, as well as biochemical interactions during infection.

Phage therapy, as an alternative to antibiotics, can largely avoid the problem of drug resistance and thus gain more attention. An important advantage of phage therapy is that the specificity of the phage to the host bacteria saves non-pathogenic microorganisms from being killed during the treatment. Therefore, host range is also a key feature of phage therapy. In general, Broad host range phages are just similar to broad-spectrum antibiotics that always present more applications. To kill several different bacteria causing the infection at the same time, a mixture of various phages can be prepared

Phage Host Range Determination

Currently, different methods have been developed for the determination of phage host range. However, different methods may lead to different results, making it difficult to define host ranges. There are seven host range types including adsorptive, penetrative, bactericidal, productive, plaquing, spotting, and lysogenic. Each host range type corresponds to a different step in the phage infection process or a different method of measuring host range. The general test method can follow the following steps:

• Relevant bacterial collections development to obtain a large number of bacteria.
• Spot testing for each phage on the selected set of bacteria. Up to 36 phages can be tested simultaneously using square plates.
• Determination of the efficiency of plating (EOP) of phage against susceptible strains.

Fig.1 Distribution of host range breadths of Streptomyces temperate phages. (Ross, et al., 2016)

Creative Biolabs offers the most advanced and comprehensive phage host range determination services. We work to amplify your success in a highly collaborative manner. If you are interested in our services, please do not hesitate to contact us for detailed information.

Reference:

1. Ross, A.; et al. More is better: selecting for broad host range bacteriophages. Frontiers in microbiology. 2016, 7: 1352.