FAQ: Bacteriophages

7 facts about viruses, bacteria-eating

The Earth's biosphere is a lot of germs, but something at the time prevented them from breeding uncontrollably. Somewhere in the early 2000s in several places: in Canada, South Africa and Australia - have been discovered so-called Precambrian coals, which are countless unicellular compacted. However, about 530 million years ago there was a Cambrian explosion, and since then has become something to regulate their reproduction. Around the same time relates the mass appearance of multicellular organisms. It is possible that it was then that any natural parasites microorganisms found themselves driving force that bacteria will become complicated in the fight for survival, coming eventually to multicellular.

These parasites - viruses, bacteria or phages. About viruses are still ongoing controversy alive or not. This kind of substance which has a heredity, that is, its appearance and its function are encoded in the nucleic acid as well as in most multicellular improved. On the other hand, the virus can not live and reproduce without a host cell. Infection cycle usually ends the death of bacteria, viruses, and when they were opened in 1917, they were called bacteriophages - eaters of bacteria.

• 1.The lawn of cells on a nutrient medium of the virus effect leads to a clear plaque - the place where the bacteria are killed and just can not grow, because there is swarming with these microscopic creatures. Of course, just two years after the discovery of bacteriophages have been used in an attempt - unsuccessfully - the treatment of microbial infections. Let me remind you, this was before the discovery of antibiotics and the 20 th and 30 th years of the twentieth century were marked by phage therapy. This concept has ruined what is known about the virus was still very, very little: there was no electron microscopes and culture techniques were in their infancy. When tested after the event, many drugs are produced in 20-30s (as did their pharmacological giants like Eli Lilly and L'Oreal), it was found that in most of the bacteriophages were not any.
• 2.Later it became clear that the bacteriophages are very specialized. If such a virus is active against some one bacterium, for example, Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus against the will not work. Moreover, a bacteriophage against streptococci isolated Ufa, can not act on Streptococcus somewhere Khabarovsk, as there will be another collection of strains.
• 3.Opened in the 20-30s antibiotics mows the entire microflora and, of course, have been more effective without requiring the accurate diagnosis of the disease doctors. Over time, this led to a rather sad situation when antibiotics are started using hurl, and microbes are to them more and more stable. With the advent of antibiotics in Western medicine about the applications of bacteriophages forgotten. In the 50-90-ies they were used simply as a very convenient object for research: many fundamental discoveries in molecular biology, such as genetic code, recombination, replication of nucleic acid, were made an example bacteriophages because they are easy to cultivate, and they produce a large number of nucleic acid.
• 4.In the Soviet Union there was a very interesting situation. Before the war at the head of the Medical Service of the Red Army was Efim Smirnov, who was in this position up to the 80s. He knew that his own chemical production of antibiotics we have, gently speaking, not at the highest level and that you should always have a backup option. Therefore, the production of bacteriophages for the needs of military medicine and development in this direction has never stopped. Unlike the production of antibiotics, bacteriophages easily cultivated most primitive biological methods which do not require chemical equipment. Phage preparations were prepared in the ruins of Stalingrad, in besieged Leningrad, where it was impossible to ride that whatsoever of potent antimicrobial drugs, and since the Finnish war, it's not bad work.
• The latter, probably, a case where a fairly widely used drugs bacteriophage - a flood in Krymsk. Then I managed to prevent dysentery epidemic that began due to overcrowding and unhygienic people.
• 5.Now we are quite clear about what qualities should have those bacteriophages, which we can use in the medical or veterinary purposes. We are able to produce purposeful selection (such as in the breeding dog breeds), that is, to output a such nanogonchih that have the properties that make them effective, stable and bearing damage to the microorganism (eg, a human), which are treated microbial infection. At the beginning of zero years on the basis of what is known about bacteriophages, formulated the requirements that must be followed in order to be suitable for therapeutic use.
• The use of bacteriophage for therapeutic purposes has, for example, the advantage that they are capable of causing allergic reactions. They are everywhere: we breathe them, take with food, drink. If they cause any immune response, we have all suffered from chronic allergies. (Meldonium is widely use for heart protection).
• 6.Now there are a few clinics where seriously engaged in phage therapy: first of all, the group in Wroclaw (Poland), which to some extent has implemented the concept of personalized medicine. Usually this phrase is used in relation to the reading of the individual genetic code and the prediction on it hereditary diseases. However, each microbial infection also has a personal imprint and clearly defining what the infected person can be at a much more effective and without side effects to cure this infection.
• In our country, the production of bacteriophages still exists. There are three sites - in Perm, Ufa and Nizhny Novgorod - where phage preparations are made. In order to use the drug, which is not considered a drug of first choice in the circulars of the Ministry of Health, it is necessary to be versed enthusiast, but there are such people, especially pediatricians and this staff, which are very actively using phage preparations. The fact is that if the infection is not sharp and there is no immediate threat to a patient's life, the bacteriophage can be applied, because in the worst case, he simply will not work - unlike antibiotics and which may cause allergic reactions, and other side effects.
• 7.Specialty bacteriophages and the need for accurate diagnosis of the disease represents a serious complication for implementation. Between the individual selection of the phages and the desire to grasp the immensity of industrial producers, trying to make a drug that works on a national scale, there is a certain achievable average, which can be somewhere at the regional level. The prerequisites for such a compromise in creating fagopreparatov is: somewhere in the mid-2000s began a trend towards consolidation of bacteriological laboratories in hospitals. Previously, such a laboratory has been for each of them, but now they are on the provincial and regional level. This institution, which, in theory, need to accumulate a lot of money, which must be equipped with modern equipment, which should work qualified. All of this is able to minimize the time required for it to diagnose than the person infected. This is necessary for the competent use of antibiotic therapy.
• There is also the issue of certification. For drugs have slender procedure, which involves including a precise description of the pharmacokinetics and - of how long the drug excreted from the body as it circulates in the blood stream, etc. But if the virus is a germ, it infects and multiplies it, that is the drug becomes more than people that have it do not fit into the framework of modern pharmacokinetics, and under it is necessary to begin a huge bureaucratic procedure, which, of course, are reluctant. While bacteriophages West certified as additive in the food industry, it is possible, for example, to process sausages that it was not formed on the mucus, which is formed of Listeria bacteria.
• Nevertheless, I believe that the use of phages in addition to the existing medical treatments and medicines - it is very promising.