Yet again, the DisCo ball (fluorescence) led us quickly to phages of interest. The hits were isolated and confirmed by plaque assays on monoculture lawns of each strain. 7/

What if we dug into a sample a little more “wild” and a little less characterized? We combined our strains with a wastewater sample (thank you citizens of Boston for your ~contributions~), and again we found fluorescent hits! Each was isolated and characteristics confirmed on monoculture lawns. 5/

Phage DisCo can be further multiplexed with three bacterial strains in co-culture, and, when tested with characterized phages, the fluorescent signal shined! Maybe you can see where the disco ball comparison comes in here. 🪩 4/

What if, instead of sampling hundreds of phages, we could just make the right ones glow? Enter Phage Discovery by Co-culture (Phage DisCo)! Simply, this method combines two strains: a wildtype and a modified strain, each fluorescently tagged. Now, fluorescent signal will mark plaques of interest. 3/