Phage Therapy

[Subsea]

@Timfish posted this on a @Paul B thread on another forum and I commented there, yet I thought it was worthwhile to post on this forum:

Just thought I'd post this. There's a lot of beneficial phages or virus'. Using phages for bacterial infections was a thing a century ago but antibiotics stole the show about 50-60 years ago. I can't help but think the mud Paul collects from tidepools with it's load of beneficial bacteria and phages is one reason for his success. Search "phage therapy" or "phage antibacterial" for more info.

Without a doubt, pathogen immunity to antibiotics is a serious medical issue that will continue to plague life on earth. When I googled “phage therapy”, I got this

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5547374/​

Phage therapy: An alternative to antibiotics in the age of multi-drug resistance​

The practice of phage therapy, which uses bacterial viruses (phages) to treat bacterial infections, has been around for almost a century. The universal decline in the effectiveness of antibiotics has generated renewed interest in revisiting this practice. ...​

PHAGE BIOLOGY BASICS​

Phages are simple, yet incredibly diverse, non-living biological entities consisting of DNA or RNA enclosed within a protein capsid. As naturally-occurring bacterial parasites, phages are incapable of reproducing independently (i.e., non-living) and are ultimately dependent on a bacterial host for survival. Phages typically bind to specific receptors on the bacterial cell surface, inject their genetic material into the host cell, and then either integrate this material into the bacterial genome (so-called “temperate” phages) and reproduce vertically from mother to daughter cell, or hijack the bacterial replication machinery to produce the next generation of phage progeny and lyse the cell (so-called “lytic” phages). Upon reaching a critical mass of phage progeny, which can be anywhere from a few to over 1000 viral particles, depending on environmental factors, the lytic proteins become active and hydrolyze the peptidoglycan cell wall, releasing novel phage to reinitiate the lytic cycle[18,19].

 

[tzabor10]

It seems cool. But could you please help me to tie it in with reef keeping? I’m not connecting the dots

 

[GlassMunky]

It seems cool. But could you please help me to tie it in with reef keeping? I’m not connecting the dots

I think they are trying to infer that since paul collects mud from the ocean then therefore that mud must be full of these phages and that's why pauls tank is so nice.

I don't agree with that assertion, but i think thats what they are trying to get at.

 

[Subsea]

It seems cool. But could you please help me to tie it in with reef keeping? I’m not connecting the dots

Just look at the threads in the disease forum and see the constant theme to add chemicals to treat disease instead of allowing natural immunity to work

I think they are trying to infer that since paul collects mud from the ocean then therefore that mud must be full of these phages and that's why pauls tank is so nice.

I don't agree with that assertion, but i think thats what they are trying to get at.

Did you read peer reviewed research paper that was linked?

While I do know Paul, the research is not focused on Paul’s tank.

 

[GlassMunky]

Just look at the threads in the disease forum and see the constant theme to add chemicals to treat disease instead of allowing natural immunity to work

Did you read peer reviewed research paper that was linked. While I do know Paul, the research is not focused on Paul’s tank.

no, i didnt read it because il well aware of what phages are and how they are used in human medicine.

I think your whole premise here is flawed. "natural immunity" as you call it and phages in the water are not the same thing.
sure some phages in the water may go after other viruses in the water but thats not your coral or tank being immune to anything, its just nature at work and things can still get skewed and cause issues. Also, at this point in time we have ZERO idea about how any of that actually works in the real world or the interplay between them all as it relates to coral health and the biome of our tanks.

Its def cool science and an interesting thing for scientists to look into but for our use in a reef tank this has no bearing IMO.

 

[Timfish]

The way I would put it is: We know phages are essential for coral health, as well as coral diseases. We know microbiomes in corals in aquaria loose diversity. We know some of the practices aquarists use skew the microbiomes in aquaria. So, reestablishing microbiomes more in line with what's found in nature should improve long term survival.

This is pretty much just a corollary of what research is finding with human biomes as well as terrestial biomes. With humans in particular we know disrupted microbiomes lead to a host of chronic issues, some of which can lead acute problems and even death. With farming a major world wide concern is the farming practices that initially lead to increased production but in the long run leads to sterilized soils as the microbiomes are destroyed.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Viruses are more prevalent in seawater than are bacteria by a large factor.

However, our understanding of them is far too limited to be particularly useful in terms of husbandry, IMO.

IMO, it's like knowing there are ions in seawater, but not what they are or what roles they play.

One can speculate on all kinds of things, such as using a UV or adding natural seawater or rocks or sediments, but IMO, I don't see how we even know if any particular action is desirable or undesirable.

 

[tzabor10]

Seems like a test from Aquabiomics could provide a window into an Aquariums bacteria. I certainly don’t add killing chemicals lightly.

 

[Subsea]

@Timfish Thank you for clarification.

“This is pretty much just a corollary of what research is finding with human biomes as well as terrestial biomes. With humans in particular we know disrupted microbiomes lead to a host of chronic issues, some of which can lead acute problems and even death. With farming a major world wide concern is the farming practices that initially lead to increased production but in the long run leads to sterilized soils as the microbiomes are destroyed.“

Viruses are more prevalent in seawater than are bacteria by a large factor.

However, our understanding of them is far too limited to be particularly useful in terms of husbandry, IMO.

IMO, it's like knowing there are ions in seawater, but not what they are or what roles they play.

One can speculate on all kinds of things, such as using a UV or adding natural seawater or rocks or sediments, but IMO, I don't see how we even know if any particular action is desirable or undesirable.

I will continue to quote Martin Moe who replied to a question on reef aquarium husbandry, “It’s not rocket science, it’s more complicated”.

 

[Nano_Man]

Interesting subject

 

[Doctorgori]

So pale yellow ORA tangs tank raised in “oxygen bubbles” and fed soylent green get sick before the post nuclear walleye/tang hybrids from the East River …
Makes sense…

seriously tho, interesting

 

[Dav2996]

Viruses are more prevalent in seawater than are bacteria by a large factor.

However, our understanding of them is far too limited to be particularly useful in terms of husbandry, IMO.

IMO, it's like knowing there are ions in seawater, but not what they are or what roles they play.

One can speculate on all kinds of things, such as using a UV or adding natural seawater or rocks or sediments, but IMO, I don't see how we even know if any particular action is desirable or undesirable.

From what I learned in my microbiology course in college. Phages eat only eat one kind of bacteria and prevent the bacteria from growing. Like how we get viruses when we are sick but it will attack the bacteria. Now imagine immplementing this in salt water and have less cleaning to do.

 

[Dav2996]

Viruses are more prevalent in seawater than are bacteria by a large factor.

However, our understanding of them is far too limited to be particularly useful in terms of husbandry, IMO.

IMO, it's like knowing there are ions in seawater, but not what they are or what roles they play.

One can speculate on all kinds of things, such as using a UV or adding natural seawater or rocks or sediments, but IMO, I don't see how we even know if any particular action is desirable or undesirable.

Why we are working on phages in healthcare because antibiotics are becoming useless because most bacteria are becoming resistant. Phages have no chemicals too they are all natural. Virus

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

From what I learned in my microbiology course in college. Phages eat only eat one kind of bacteria and prevent the bacteria from growing. Like how we get viruses when we are sick but it will attack the bacteria. Now imagine immplementing this in salt water and have less cleaning to do.

Yes, in theory it is desirable if you knew of a pathogenic bacteria you wanted to kill.

But, of course, one cannot at the moment buy a vial of such targeted viruses.

We discussed this and other viruses issues in this recent thread:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/a-huge-neglected-frontier-in-reefkeeping.1047466/

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Why we are working on phages in healthcare because antibiotics are becoming useless because most bacteria are becoming resistant. Phages have no chemicals too they are all natural. Virus

As probably one of the few members of Reef2Reef who have actually worked in pharma on programs designing ways to treat bacterial infections, I am very familiar with these issues.

That said, we are very, very far from having any useful phage treatments for reef tanks.

Here's some of the antimicrobial work i did:

https://ppubs.uspto.gov/dirsearch-public/print/downloadPdf/6767549
A method for treating a microbial infection in a mammal, such as a human, comprising treating the mammal with a therapeutically effective amount of a polymer comprising...

 

[Nano_Man]

So pale yellow ORA tangs tank raised in “oxygen bubbles” and fed soylent green get sick before the post nuclear walleye/tang hybrids from the East River …
Makes sense…

seriously tho, interesting

Interesting top and bottom of this in your aquarium sheltering your fish from every thing or let your fish form a immune system far stronger than sheltered fish to fight off illness
In humans they call it herd immunity very interesting

 

[Nano_Man]

Some people don’t get it about building stronger immunity in a reefs . I read articles from you and Paul and it changed the way I run my tanks for ever so first of all Thank you both. I’ve never looked back ii am throwing all sorts of life into my tanks and my fish have never looked better. I think a lot of tank bred fish have never come in contact with much in their young life’s . Look at it this way all of our lives we are fighting off viruses and infections and our immune system grows more after every illness. Some people may agree and others will never understand the natural way

 

[Subsea]

Seems like a test from Aquabiomics could provide a window into an Aquariums bacteria. I certainly don’t add killing chemicals lightly.

I don’t think Aquabiodomics $50 test can approach the sophistication required to determine microbial warfare in marine environments, particularly in areas of hijacked dna.

 

[GlassMunky]

I don’t think Aquabiodomics $50 test can approach the sophistication required to determine microbial warfare in marine environments.

Honestly his test can’t provide much at all.
He doesn’t even have repeatable results.

 

[Subsea]

Why we are working on phages in healthcare because antibiotics are becoming useless because most bacteria are becoming resistant. Phages have no chemicals too they are all natural. Virus

This is at the center of my point for posting this thread:

Indiscriminate use of chemicals are creating super resistant bacteria. FIND ANOTHER WAY!