En bakteriofag fra 1920-tallet viser seg å kunne angripe en bakterie som første gang ble funnet av UiT-forskere hundre år senere. Funnet kan bety nye behandlingsmuligheter i møte med økende antibiotik...

Mucin hypersecretion, a hallmark of chronic respiratory diseases (CRD), creates a complex microenvironment that reshapes host immunity and microbial behavior. However, its impact on bacteriophage ther...

Background Staphylococcal infections, caused by a large variety of species within the Staphylococcus genus, are a threat to human health. Although antibiotics are the current choice of treatment for these infections, bacteriophage (phage) therapy has been used with success against Staphylococcus since the dawn of phage therapy. In 2020 a new coagulase-negative species named Staphylococcus borealis was described in Norway. In this study, we focused on understanding phage infections in S. borealis. Methods: First, we predict the presence of prophages and phage-defence mechanisms in the genomes of a collection of twelve S. borealis strains by bioinformatics. We also attempted to isolate S. borealis-infecting phages from Norwegian samples and tested the host-range of three known staphylococcal phages against a panel of fifty Norwegian staphylococcal strains. Results: The presence of prophages and phage defence systems was verified in all tested S. borealis strains. No local Norwegian phages could be obtained in a phage isolation attempt targeted towards S. borealis. The host range analysis shows that phage ISP, originally isolated in the 1920s and still used for phage therapy to date, can infect S. capitis and the S. borealis Hus23 strain. Phage ISP was shown to limit S. borealis Hus23 growth in liquid cultures and lower the formation of biofilm by the bacterium. The efficiency of plating of phage ISP can be improved by repeated passages in the new S. borealis Hus23 host. Conclusions: here we expand the known host range of the traditional phage ISP by showing that it also infects S. borealis and can be adapted to the new host by serial passages, showcasing the flexibility of phages as an antimicrobial strategy.

Rodrigues and Queiroz et al. report the discovery of Naiavirus, the largest enveloped virus, isolated from a Brazil biome. With an oval capsid and flexible tail, its giant genome holds many novel gene...

Investigative gene-ius...

This study contributes novel knowledge on the clinical relevance of Staphylococcus borealis; this is of importance when clinical microbiologists encounter S. borealis identified in patient samples. S....

Jyvaskylavirus, the northernmost isolate of the Marseilleviridae family, shows that giant viruses are also part of the boreal Finnish environment and brings structural information with relevance for u...

Abstract. Comparative genomic analysis often involves visualization of alignments of genomic loci. While several software tools are available for this task

Universities are in trouble, and it’s not just money we’re talking about. They are living through something of a crisis of confidence, even of trust and faith. More and more, I find myself, and my col...

Reanalysis of 12,262 longitudinal infant gut microbiome samples using the Marker-MAGu pipeline revealed phage–bacteria dynamics over the first year of life.

UiT The Arctic University of Norway has established «The Arctic MSCA-PF program» (uit.no/project/arcticmsca) to recruit excellent young researchers planning to apply for a Marie Skƚodowsk

Communications Biology - Phage VAC3 adaptations to the mucosal environment (improved replication in mucin-treated hosts and retention in the respiratory tract) are mechanisms that can exploited as...