The evolution of bacteriophage life-history traits: Does host physiology control the success of virulent and temperate strategies?

噬菌体是最有前途的抗生素替代品之一，为治疗多重耐药细菌感染提供了有效的工具。最近使用噬菌体作为最后手段的药物表明它们可以有效治疗与慢性分枝杆菌感染相关的发病率。然而，许多噬菌体并不杀死它们的宿主，而是作为基因组前噬菌体休眠。这是噬菌体疗法的一个主要限制，因为目前还不清楚为什么不同的生活方式策略在不同的宿主和环境中占主导地位。通过使用分子克隆和恒化器为基础的分析，我将测试各种假说，可以解释噬菌体生活史性状的变化。这将有助于为下一代噬菌体治疗工程化的方法提供信息，并突出最适合其有效使用的临床系统。

Bacteriophages are one of the most promising alternatives to antibiotics and provide an effective tool for treating multi-drug resistant bacterial infections. Recent use of bacteriophage as drugs of last resort demonstrate they are effective in treating morbidity associated with chronic Mycobacterium infections. Yet many bacteriophages do not kill their hosts, instead lying dormant as genomic prophages. This is a major limitation of phage therapy, as it is not yet clear why different life-style strategies dominate within different hosts and environments. By using molecular cloning and chemostat based assays I will test various hypotheses that may explain variation in phage life-history traits. This should help inform future approaches to engineer phages for the next generation of phage therapy and highlight the most appropriate clinical systems for their effective use.