Fighting a Bacterial Infection? Put a 'Jumbo Virus' In the Ring
Viruses don't technically eat, but they do consume. Depending on what kind of virus it is, a virion will hijack a specific type of host cell and then steal that cell's energy to feed its own replication process. Many viruses target tissue cells (like the ones that comprise your lung lining or your lymph nodes), but others hunger exclusively for bacteria. These viruses are called bacteriophages.
Researchers have been experimenting with bacteriophages as infection-fighting weapons for nearly a century—before even conventional antibiotics hit their peak. But the average bacteriophage is susceptible to the body's bacterial defenses. To stave off the immune system, scientists must call in the big guns: jumbo phages, or extra-large bacteriophages.
Credit: Kateryna Kon/Science Photo Library via Getty Images
Microbiologists in California have found that jumbo phages possess protective shields that guard them against the body's antiphage immune responses. But these shields can't block out the body completely; doing so would prevent the jumbo phages from receiving the proteins they need to continue working. A paper published Wednesday in Nature reveals that, rather than indiscriminately rejecting their surroundings, jumbo phages use "secret handshakes" to determine which proteins to accept and which ones to turn away.
According to a University of California, San Francisco press release, all of a jumbo phage's memorized handshakes lie with a large central protein. This protein has many unique "hands," each of which fits with a different type of protein the phage might encounter in the body. When a jumbo phage encounters a protein, the microscopic strangers attempt to shake hands. If the protein knows the right handshake, it's permitted to enter the jumbo phage; if it doesn't, it's rejected.
"It's a surprisingly complicated thing for a phage to be doing," senior study author and immunologist Joseph Bondy-Denomy said.
Bondy-Denomy and his team researched ΦKZ-like jumbo phages, which specifically go after Pseudomonas, a genus of 348 different Gram-negative bacteria. One of those types of bacteria is Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which is known to invade the body after surgery and infect the blood, lungs, gastrointestinal tract, and other essential systems. By unlocking the secret handshakes behind ΦKZ-like jumbo phages' inner functions, the researchers are one step closer to making phage-equipped antibiotic treatments that could prevent or quickly wipe out these life-threatening post-surgery infections, even in the face of unprecedented antibiotic resistance.
"We're just at the starting point of realizing all this potential," said Claire Kokontis, a student biologist involved in the research. "By getting a handle on the basic science of how these phages work, we're laying the groundwork to adapt them for fighting disease."
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