Abstract
Bacteriophages are viruses that infect bacteria and can be used in phage therapy to combat bacterial infections resistant to traditional antibiotics. One current limitation of phage therapy is the lack of understanding about phage genetics and biochemistry. We can learn more about bacteriophages by identifying patterns in their protein structure. In our experiments, we immunized BALB/c mice using whole phage or ~71>kDa proteins extracted from Sbash and Island3. We tail-bled the mice to collect antibodies raised against these phages, then used ELISA assays to detect anti-phage protein antibodies in mouse serum. We are using our antibodies and Western blot analysis to understand biochemical relationships between Island3, Sbash, and several other bacteriophages that infect Mycobacterium smegmatis.
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Mousing Around with Bacteriophages: Using Antibodies Raised in BALB/c Mice to Analyze Phages
Bacteriophages are viruses that infect bacteria and can be used in phage therapy to combat bacterial infections resistant to traditional antibiotics. One current limitation of phage therapy is the lack of understanding about phage genetics and biochemistry. We can learn more about bacteriophages by identifying patterns in their protein structure. In our experiments, we immunized BALB/c mice using whole phage or ~71>kDa proteins extracted from Sbash and Island3. We tail-bled the mice to collect antibodies raised against these phages, then used ELISA assays to detect anti-phage protein antibodies in mouse serum. We are using our antibodies and Western blot analysis to understand biochemical relationships between Island3, Sbash, and several other bacteriophages that infect Mycobacterium smegmatis.