[conspire] Café Scientifique, Feb 16: Bacteriophages

[Deirdre Saoirse Moen]

On Mon, Feb 27, 2023, at 12:32 PM, Nick Moffitt wrote:
> I put down that I was genuinely surprised to learn that bacteriophages 
> were viruses.  Given the name (Greek for "bacteria-eater"), I had 
> assumed all my life that they were some sort of eukaryotic predator!

Or at least alive (in a technical sense) since eater implies metabolism that viruses don't have when outside a cell.

The speaker pointed out that one of the areas where antibiotics don't work very well is where there's a biofilm that the bacteria has built up. (Think dental plaque as an example of same.) It's known that part of the lung issues with cystic fibrosis is the thick sticky film that lines the lungs, which is produced by bacteria.

So what they discovered that was cool is that the cystic fibrosis biofilm consists of a great many bacteriophages that bacteria are using symbiotically, having the effect that the cystic fibrosis becomes much more severe.

They'd done tests to see what % of CF patients had this sort of biofilm. In early cases, it was around 10%, by adulthood it was around 50%, and at the time the person's ready for a lung transplant, 100%, and is correlated with disease severity.

If they can solve the biofilm issue, likely by figuring out how to manage the phages angle, they may be able to make CF less lethal.

Additionally, the reason colon cancer is hard to treat (once it's advanced) is also a bacteriophage biofilm issue. (For those who may not know: colon cancer primarily stems from dental bacteria.)

Deirdre