Newly Discovered Virus can Kill Resistant Bacteria
Published:29 Mar.2023 Source:University of Southern Denmark
"We have found five new species that we believe are unknown to science," said associate professor Clare Kirkpatrick, who studies bacterial stress-response at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at University of Southern Denmark.
The somewhat surprising discovery was made during the coronavirus pandemic, when some of Kirkpatrick's students could not carry out their normal microbe studies in the laboratory and therefore went on field trips to local creeks to see if they had any interesting microbes to offer.
The fact that viruses exist in nature is not surprising, as they are the world's most widespread organism. They are everywhere and part of all kinds of microbial cycles and ecosystems, but the fact that five potentially new species have appeared in local creeks, did surprise Clare Kirkpatrick.
While four of the five have not yet had their genome mapped in a genome sequencing, one species has now been fully sequenced, scientifically described, named and published in Microbiology Resource Announcements. The name is Fyn8.
Many viruses are so-called bacteriophages (or phages), meaning that they kill bacteria, and Fyn8 is no exception. It can attack and kill the bacteria Pseudomonas aeruginosa.
Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a bacterium found naturally in soil and water. It is normally harmless towards healthy people, but like many other bacteria it has developed resistance to antibiotics and is found in hospitals.
For example, patients with wounds (like burn patients) and ventilator patients are at risk of getting an infection that cannot be fought with antibiotics.