Abstract
Bacteriophages (phages) are biological entities that have attracted a great deal of attention in recent years. They have been reported as the most abundant biological entities on the planet and their ability to impact the composition of bacterial communities is of great interest. In this review, we aim to explore where phages exist in natural and artificial environments and how they impact communities. The natural environment in this review will focus on the human body, soils, and the marine environment. In these naturally occurring environments there is an abundance of phages suggesting a role in the maintenance of bacterial community homeostasis. The artificial environment focuses on wastewater treatment plants, industrial processes, followed by pharmaceutical formulations. As in natural environments, the existence of bacteria in manmade wastewater treatment plants and industrial processes inevitably attracts phages. The presence of phages in these environments can inhibit the bacteria required for efficient water treatment or food production. Alternatively, they can have a positive impact by eliminating recalcitrant organisms. Finally, we conclude by describing how phages can be manipulated or formulated into pharmaceutical products in the laboratory for use in natural or artificial environments.
Highlights
With advances in DNA sequencing and genomics over the last decade, microbiome research has increased at an exponential rate [1]
We show that the impact of lytic phages can be both beneficial and detrimental, which highlights the importance of studying phage communities as an integral part of microbial ecology
Emerging research has shown that inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is associated with elevated levels of double-stranded DNA phages and that such changes in the abundance and diversity of intestinal phages were independent of changes in the host bacterial communities [48,49,50]
Summary
With advances in DNA sequencing and genomics over the last decade, microbiome research has increased at an exponential rate [1]. Pathogens 2019, 8, 100 earth, ten-fold more than bacterial population estimates, making phages the most abundant biological entities in the biosphere [4] Phages infect their host by a range of biochemically diverse host surface receptors, such as carbohydrates, lipopolysaccharides, and proteins [5,6]. Prophage integration often provides immunity from a superinfection, which is a secondary infection of phages, due to the expression of phage resistance genes by the prophage [8] This resistance arises through several mechanisms including prophage mediated changes in cell surface receptors which prevents subsequent phage attachment [9]. Pharmaceutical uses for phages are currently limited, but this is likely to change as the efficacy of antibiotics reduces and phage efficacy and specificity are improved in the laboratory
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