Bacteriophages (phages) are viruses that can infect and kill the bacterial hosts specifically. Interaction between phages and their bacterial hosts is important in molecular biology research and has been extensively studied for decades. In various environments, phages and bacteria work toward into an endless state of co-evolutionary competition and equilibrium. On the one hand, the high abundance of phages, which outnumber bacteria by approximately 10-fold, makes the encounter of bacteria and phage invaders possible in every ecosystem. To survive and/or escape phage predation, bacteria have evolved and acquired sets of resistance mechanisms, including prevention of phage adsorption to cell surfaces and subsequent injection of phage genomes, targeted cleavage of injected nucleic acids via restriction-modification (R-M) system and CRISPR/Cas system, and even suicide of phage-infected cells via abortive-infection (Abi) system. Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a Gram-negative opportunistic pathogen that causes various infections mainly in immunocompromised individuals, especially for those suffering from burn wounds, cancer and cystic fibrosis. The notorious characteristics of metabolic versatility, biofilm formation, and drug resistance make P. aeruginosa-related infections very difficult to eradicate in clinical settings. Phages represent a promising alternative to traditional antibiotics for treating bacterial infections, particularly for multidrug-resistant and biofilm infections. Characterization of the structural details of phages constitutes an important effort to develop new therapeutics. Here you can see the crystal structure of the gp2 protein from the bacteriophage PA1c that infects Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PDB code: 7UYX)

#molecularart ... #immolecular ... #phage ... #pseudomonas ... #infection ... #biofilm ... #pa1c ... #gp2 ... #xray

Structure rendered with @proteinimaging and depicted with @corelphotopaint