The bacteriophage an alternative medicine for antibiotics !!!
Bacteria
Bacteria are microscopic living organisms, usually single-celled, that can be found everywhere. They can be dangerous, when they cause infection, or beneficial, as in the process of fermentation (such as in wine) and that of decomposition.
Bacteriophage
A bacteriophage is a type of virus that infects bacteria. All bacteriophages are composed of a nucleic acid molecule that is surrounded by a protein structure. A bacteriophage attaches itself to a susceptible bacterium and infects the host cell.
Antibiotic
An antibiotic is a type of antimicrobial substance that is active against bacteria and is the most important type of antibacterial agent for fighting against bacterial infections. Antibiotic medications are widely used in the treatment and prevention of such infections. They may either kill or inhibit the growth of bacteria
superbugs
“Superbugs” is a term used to describe strains of bacteria that are resistant to the majority of antibiotic
Antimicrobial resistance
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR or AR) is the ability of a microbe to resist the effects of medication that one could successfully treat the microbe
Mechanism of antibiotic
Have you ever wondered how antibiotics kill invading bacteria while leaving human cells alone? even though there are similarities between bacteria and human cells, there are many differences. Antibiotics work by affecting things that bacterial cells have but human cells don’t.
For example, human cells do not have cell walls, while many types of bacteria do. The antibiotic penicillin works by keeping a bacterium from building a cell wall. Bacteria and human cells also differ in the structure of their cell membranes and the machinery they use to build proteins or copy DNA. Some antibiotics dissolve the membrane of just bacterial cells. Others affect protein-building or DNA-copying machinery that is specific to bacteria
Different families of antibiotics have different ways of killing bacteria. Below are descriptions of a few types of antibiotics and their mechanisms of action
- Beta-Lactam
- macrolides
- quinolones
Mechanism of bacteriophage
As part of the process of infection, the phage injects its genetic material into the bacterium. This is then incorporated into the bacterium’s genetic material, changing the host into a virus-producing factory. Eventually, the bacterium bursts open, and thousands of new phages flow out. This bactericidal effect is a complex but effective feature that is enormously important both to people and to the natural world. Bacteriophages keep the number of bacteria under control, thus preventing these unicellular organisms from swamping all other life on Earth.
A single drop of seawater contains one million bacteria and no fewer than ten million phages. One-third of all the bacteria in the world’s oceans are killed by bacteriophages every day. The same thing happens in our intestines, where phages form a sort of secondary immune system. They protect us from harmful outbreaks of the bacteria that are normally found in our bodies. These viruses are finding an increasing number of applications in science, one of which is as an alternative to the antibiotic.
Genetic evolution
The theory of evolution by natural selection, first formulated in Darwin’s book “On the Origin of Species” in 1859, is the process by which organisms change over time as a result of changes in heritable physical or behavioural traits. Changes that allow an organism to better adapt to its environment will help it survive and have more offspring.
Evolution by natural selection is one of the best-substantiated theories in the history of science, supported by evidence from a wide variety of scientific disciplines, including palaeontology, geology, genetics and developmental biology.
The theory is sometimes described as “survival of the fittest,” but that can be misleading. Here, “fitness” refers not to an organism’s strength or athletic ability, but rather the ability to survive and reproduce.
In the case of bacteria
According to the above theory, the bacteria gets resistance against the antibiotic and the resistance transported to its inheritance this lets ineffectiveness or less effectiveness of antibiotics, they let the formation of several superbugs for those we want to produce the antibiotic
In the case of bacteriophages
The same here the bacteriophages also get changes in their genetics which mean they get the ability to kill the bacteria and they too transport that genetic detail to the next generation
the disadvantage of bacteriophages treatment
- in some case, our immunity treat phages as foreign particles
- it is specific in its action
- still, this is under testing
- it is expensive than antibiotic
This clearly shows that the next era of medicine will be bacteriophages but still the phage techniques are under development this all due to the misuse or overuse of antibiotic
“This shows that man’s knowledge in medicine has both boon and bane”
