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污染食品引起的细菌性疾病。在自然界中，这些细菌可以被一类只感染宿主细菌的病毒（噬菌体）杀死。该建议利用负责特定宿主识别的噬菌体蛋白，即尾钉蛋白（tsp），设计出一种用于食品净化和开发增值牲畜饲料的新方法。我们之前的研究表明，给鸡喂食特异性识别沙门氏菌的噬菌体tsp会减少鸡肠道中沙门氏菌的数量。这是通过tsp将致病细菌聚集在一起并阻止它们在动物肠道内有效定植的能力来实现的。我们的第一个目标是与陶氏农业科学加拿大公司一起开发一种方法，在植物中大量表达活性噬菌体tsp，然后可以喂养

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