New PreMiEr Publication: Bacteria Killing Viruses Can Quickly Evolve to Withstand Silver
PreMiEr researchers at NC A&T show that phage T7, a virus that infects E. coli, can rapidly evolve resistance to ionic silver while becoming even better at killing bacteria.
Bacteriophages, viruses that infect and kill bacteria, are being explored as alternatives to antibiotics, and silver is widely used as an antimicrobial. In a new study published in Microorganisms, PreMiEr researchers Joseph L. Graves Jr. and Liesl Jeffers-Francis and colleagues repeatedly exposed phage T7 to ionic silver. The phage populations recovered over time and evolved resistance quickly. The silver adapted phages killed E. coli more effectively than control and ancestral phages, and they kept their stability under different temperature and pH conditions. Genomic analysis identified the mutations behind this resistance, pointing to new ways of combining phages and metals to fight bacteria.
Read more here: https://doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms14061243