Novel crops expressing bacteriophage tailspike proteins for reduction of foodborne pathogens at source

数以百万计的加拿大人患有由受污染的食物引起的细菌性疾病。在自然界中，这些细菌可以被一类只感染它们的宿主细菌的病毒(噬菌体)杀死。这项提议利用负责特定宿主识别的噬菌体蛋白，即尾钉蛋白(TSPs)，设计出一种新的食品去污染方法，并开发高附加值的牲畜饲料。我们之前已经证明，用能够识别沙门氏菌的噬菌体TSP喂养鸡会导致鸡肠道中沙门氏菌数量的减少。这是通过TSP将致病细菌聚集在一起并防止它们有效地在动物肠道定居的能力来实现的。我们与Dow AgroSciences Canada Inc.的第一个目标是开发一种在植物中高效表达活性噬菌体TSP的方法，然后这些植物可以被喂养

Millions of Canadians suffer from bacterial illnesses caused by contaminated foods. In nature, these bacteria can be killed by a class of viruses (bacteriophages) that only infect their host bacteria. This proposal takes advantage of the bacteriophage proteins that are responsible for specific host recognition, known as tailspike proteins (TSPs), to devise a new method for food decontamination and developing value-added livestock feed. We have previously shown that feeding chickens with bacteriophage TSPs that specifically recognize Salmonella causes reduction of the numbers of Salmonella in the chicken intestinal tract. This is accomplished through the ability of the TSPs to clump the disease-causing bacteria together and prevent them from effectively colonizing the animal intestine. Our first objective, together with Dow AgroSciences Canada Inc., is to develop a method to express active bacteriophage TSPs in high amounts in plants that can then be fed