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The US researchers have discovered viruses that can infect bacteria in kitchen sponges, which may prove useful in fighting bacteria that cannot be killed by antibiotics alone.[br][br]The study presented on Sunday at American Society for Microbiology's annual meeting showed that two researchers used the bacteria as bait and identified two phages or bacteria-eating organisms, which could swallow bacteria from their own used kitchen sponges, the Xinhua news agency reported.[br][br]A kitchen sponge is exposed to all kinds of different microbes, thus forming a vast microbiome of bacteria and providing rich food sources for phages. [br][br]"Our study illustrates the value in searching any microbial environment that could harbor potentially useful phages," said Brianna Weiss, a life sciences student at New York Institute of Technology, in a statement.[br][br]The researchers swapped the two phages to see if they could infect the other person's isolated bacteria and they found the phages did kill the other's bacteria.[br][br]They compared the DNA of both isolated strains and discovered that they belong to a rod-shaped group of microbes commonly found in feces. Some of those microbes could cause infections in hospital settings.[br][br]Although the two bacterial strains are closely related, the researchers found chemical variations between them when performing biochemical testing, which revealed that those phages are not picky eaters.[br][br]"These differences are important in understanding the range of bacteria that a phage can infect, which is also key to determining its ability to treat specific antibiotic-resistant infections," said Weiss.[br][br]Source: https://www.ndtv.com/science/viruses-in-kitchen-sponges-may-eat-hard-to-kill-bacteria-say-scientists-2058130?amp=1&akamai-rum=off [br][br][br][br] |
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