Abstract
Bacteriophages fit in the class of natural antimicrobial and their effectiveness in controlling bacterial pathogens in agro-food industry has led to the development of different phage products. Treatment with specific phages in the food industry can prevent the decay of products and the spread of bacterial diseases and ultimately promote safe environments in animal and plant food production, processing, and handling. This project aims to characterize the Myoviridae bacteriophages SP50 that infect the genus Bacillus. The student will learn how to collect EM data, and determine structures of the viral capsid and contractile tail apparatus using methods of electron microscopy, single particle analysis and bioinformatics. This study will integrate extensive knowledge on the viral particles and the cell biology of the infection process.
References
1. Milne and Trautner; 1967, J Ultrastruct Res 20:267
2. Tavares P, Zinn-Justin S, Orlova EV; 2012, Adv Exp Med Biol. 726:585-600
3. A.P. Joseph, S. Malhotra, T. Burnley, C. Wood, D.K. Clare, M. Winn, M. Topf. Methods 100, 42-49, 2016
4. Pandurangan AP, Vasishtan D, Alber F, Topf M. (2015) Structure 23:2365–2376.