Abstract

The number of illnesses attributable to antibiotic resistant bacterial infections are on the rise. According to the CDC, by 2050, complications due to antibiotic resistant infections are set to become the most prevalent cause of death worldwide, overtaking both cancer and heart disease in number. We are required to look for supplements to aid antibiotics in the fight against bacteria because it's becoming increasingly clear that antibiotics alone will fail in the face of multidrug-resistant strains. Bacteriophages are natural killers of bacteria and can thus be weaponized to treat multidrug-resistant infections. When a phage is discovered, our databases need to contain as much information about that family of phage as possible, including genomic analysis and host range. The Vi01-like phage family is an important family of Enterobacteriaceae phages that infect many clinically relevant bacterial species like Salmonella typhimurium, Cronobacter sakazaki, Citrobacter freundii, and Shigella boydii, but were heretofore highly uncharacterized. This research began with the isolation, genome assembly, and annotation of six phages within a single family, the Vi01-like phage family, which had previously been described in the work of other researchers. The following research is a careful look into the genomic identity of the Vi01-like phages. The phages were analyzed using standard -omic approaches, focusing on genomic and proteomic characterization. While their proteomes are largely uncharacterized, mass spectrometry analysis confirmed the presence of five hypothetical proteins in the virion. Several of these proteins form a putative operon that suggests a ferritin-mediated entry system on the Vi01-like phage family tail. No dependence on this pathway was observed, however. While unable to infect every genus of Enterobacteriaceae tested, these phages are extraordinarily broad ranged, demonstrating the ability to infect Salmonella enterica, Citrobacter freundii, and Erwinia amylora with generally high efficiency. Upon inspection, the tail spike proteins of the Vi01-like phages, unique in their number within each genome, may be an important contributor to the wide range of bacterial hosts. The results of this research are currently being prepared for submission or are under review for publication.

Degree

MS

College and Department

Life Sciences; Microbiology and Molecular Biology

Rights

https://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/

Date Submitted

2023-12-07

Document Type

Thesis

Handle

http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/etd13449

Keywords

Vi01, bacteriophage, enterobacteriaceae, tail spike protein, cluster

Language

english

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