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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 29, 2025

Quantitative PCR of T7 Bacteriophage from Biopanning

Quantitative PCR of T7 Bacteriophage from Biopanning

Published on: September 27, 2018

Contracting the Host Range of Bacteriophage T7 Using a Continuous Evolution System.

Tzvi Holtzman^1,2, Ram Nechooshtan³, Ido Yosef⁴

¹Department of Clinical Microbiology and Immunology, School of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel. tzvih@iibr.gov.il.

Methods in Molecular Biology (Clifton, N.J.)

|March 25, 2024

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Bacteriophage T7 (a virus) lost its ability to infect certain bacterial strains when evolved with multiple hosts. This host range contraction is due to mutations in receptor-binding proteins (RBPs).

Keywords:

Aseptic techniquesAseptic techniques Continuous evolution systemContinuous evolution system Continuous fermentation Permissive hostPermissive host Restrictive strainRestrictive strains Specialist phage

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Area of Science:

Microbiology
Virology
Genetics

Background:

Bacteriophage T7 recognizes bacterial hosts using receptor-binding proteins (RBPs) that bind to lipopolysaccharides (LPS).
While phage host range expansion is documented, host range contraction is less understood, especially in multi-host environments.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate bacteriophage T7 host range contraction under selective pressure from multiple bacterial hosts.
To identify the genetic basis for altered phage specificity and its implications for phage applications.

Main Methods:

Utilized a continuous evolution system with T7 phage exposed to a mixture of one permissive and five restrictive bacterial strains, each with distinct LPS.
Conducted gene sequencing to identify mutations in RBPs responsible for changes in host specificity.

Main Results:

T7 phages evolved in the presence of multiple restrictive hosts gradually lost the ability to recognize and infect these strains.
Mutations in receptor-binding protein (RBP) genes were identified as the cause of this reduced host specificity.
This phenomenon was consistently observed across experiments using six different permissive hosts.

Conclusions:

Receptor-binding proteins (RBPs) play a crucial role in preventing futile infections by limiting phage host range.
The observed host range contraction can be exploited for targeted bacterial serotype recognition and elimination using bacteriophages.