Abstract
Bacteriophages are specialised nanomachines, delivering DNA payloads to specific types of bacteria via distinct interconnected parts. These parts are exchangeable: Any phage could be re-targeted to deliver DNA to any desired bacterial cell type. Although normally delivering instructions to copy itself, phages can be directed to deliver any genetic circuit to a bacterium. Artificial circuits could reprogram a cell’s repertoire with applications in microbial control, microbiome enhancement, or bioremediation. Following a previous LIDo DTP studentship, this project seeks to build on successes in phage nanomachine customisation, and extend novel payload concepts. We also seek to explore firewalling via cell-free approaches.
References
1 Yosef, I., et al. (2017). Extending the Host Range of Bacteriophage Particles for DNA Transduction. Mol Cell., 66(5): 721-728.
2 Ando, H., et al. (2015). Engineering Modular Viral Scaffolds for Targeted Bacterial Population Editing. Cell Systems, 1(3): 187-196.
3 Lee, C.S. and Guo, P. (1995). In Vitro Assembly of Infectious Virions of Double-Stranded DNA Phage 29 from Cloned Gene Products and Synthetic Nucleic Acids. J. Virol., 69(8), 5018-5023.
4 Volozhantsev, N.V., et al. (2012). Molecular Characterisation of Podoviral Bacteriophages Virulent for Clostridium perfringens and Their Comparison with Members of the Picovirinae. Plos One, 7(5): e38283.
5 Villanueva, H., Sattar, S., Javed, A., Vasciaveo, S., Pinheiro, V., Savva, R., & Orlova, E. (manuscript in preparation). Multidisciplinary structural analysis of diverse picovirinae portal proteins enables applied particle engineering.