Question

Can phage therapy be harmful?

Answer 1

Phage therapy:

1. It is a method of treating bacterial infections using bacteriophages (viruses that infect bacteria).
2. Phages are harmless to humans, animals, and plants.
3. Phages are incorporated into the body with or without antibiotics.
4. Phages will insert their genome into the infectious bacterial cells and lyse them when multiple copies(phage genome) are produced within bacterial cells.
5. Phage therapy is harmless.
6. It is considered better than antibiotics.
7. Antibiotics are known to create antibiotic-resistant strains, unlike in phage therapy.
8. However, they have the potential to cause a harmful immune response.

Bacteriophage:

1. They are viruses infecting and replicating inside a bacterial host cell.
2. They are known to use bacterial machinery to generate multiple copies of the phage genome.
3. The host cell is ruptured to release the genome copies of the phage.
4. They further infect other bacterial cells.
5. Example- P1 phage, Phi 174, etc.