Can any phage be used to develop phage preparations for food safety applications and for therapeutic use in humans or other animals?
In general, there are two major types of phages: virulent (also called lytic) and temperate (sometimes mistakenly called lysogenic). Only lytic phages are suitable for therapeutic phage preparations. At the end of their life cycles inside their specific bacterial host cells, lytic phages release a burst of progeny phages through the cytoplasmic/outer membrane, thus lysing the bacteria. On the other hand, some temperate phages (which, by definition, do not lyse all of their bacterial host cells) are lysogenic; i.e., they integrate their DNA into their initial host cells DNA and create a prophage, which subsequently may transfer, via the process of transduction, some of the original host bacteriums DNA to other host cells. Such phages are inappropriate candidates for phage therapy because they do not lyse all of their host cells, and because they may transfer genes encoding bacterial virulence factors and resistance to various antibiotics. All phage preparations developed by Intralytix c
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