Leaders | When viruses are good for you

How to battle superbugs with viruses that “eat” them

As antibiotic resistance spreads, bacteriophages could help avert a crisis

T4 bacteriophage (DNA virus), coloured transmission electron micrograph (TEM). T4 is a bacteriophage that infects Escherichia coli bacteria. Bacteriophages are composed of proteins that encapsulate a DNA or RNA genome, and may have relatively simple or elaborate structures. Their genomes may encode as few as four genes, and as many as hundreds of genes. Phages replicate within the bacterium following the injection of their genome into its cytoplasm. Bacteriophages are among the most common and diverse entities in the biosphere. Phages are widely distributed in locations populated by bacterial hosts, such as soil or the intestines of animals. One of the densest natural sources for phages and other viruses is sea water, where up to 1 trillion per millilitre have been found in microbial mats at the water surface, and up to 70% of marine bacteria may be infected by phages. Magnification: x55,065 when shortest axis printed at 25 millimetres.
Image: Science Photo Library

Antibiotics are vital to modern medicine. Their ability to kill bacteria without harming the patient has saved billions of lives directly and made everything from caesarean sections to chemotherapy much safer. Life expectancy would drop by a third if they did not exist. But after decades of overuse their powers are fading. Some bacteria have evolved resistance, creating a growing army of “superbugs” against which there is no effective treatment. Antimicrobial resistance is expected to kill 10m people a year by 2050, up from around 1m in 2019.

This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline “When viruses are good for you ”

Leaders May 6th 2023

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