Bacteriophage: Molecular Ecology and Pharmacology 2.0

Dear Colleagues,

The discovery of bacterial viruses (bacteriophages) in 1915 and 1917 by Frederick Twort and Felix d’Herelle respectively, resulted from the research projects that shared in modern terms both ecological and applied goals. During the decades of research that followed this seminal discovery, the attention of phage research shifted to general biology of phages though the applied aspect also remained. The ecological perspective almost vanished and returned to the stage only at the very end of XX century.

Nowadays it became clear that bacteriophages are one of the major forces that moves and shapes the fascinating landscape of microbial world and its interactions with the rest of the Biosphere population. Phages influence almost any known aspect of bacterial biology and adopt immense variety of strategies to exert their ‘hidden power’, ranging from direct killing of the bacterial cells to protecting the host populations by actively subverting the immune reactions of macroorganisms. At the same time the growing world-wide crisis caused by the rapid spread of multidrug resistant bacterial pathogens greatly revived the interest of the scientific community to bacteriophage-mediated biocontrol technologies, at the first place to phage therapy but also to phage applications in agriculture, food industry and other fields aiming to reduce the use of antibiotics outside of medical facilities.

Thus, the need for the convergence of ecological and applied approaches in bacteriophage biology directly streams from the contemporary concepts in this field. The outcome of phage therapy or phage biocontrol interventions is always a result of ecological interactions between bacteria, viruses and environment (including that of human or animal body). And the possibilities and limitations of these technologies are largely defined by molecular mechanisms of phage-host and/or phage-macroorganisms interactions.

To this special issue we are aiming to attract high-level research and review papers concerning molecular aspects of bacteriophage ecology in the broad sense of the latter term. This will include the papers on bacteriophage genomics and metagenomics in free-living or symbiotic microbial systems, mechanisms of bacteriophage host range determination, influence of bacterial physiology on interactions with viruses and other ecologically relevant research topics. The papers regarding direct phage interactions with macroorganisms, including phage pharmacokinetics issues are specially welcome.

Prof. Dr. Philip Serwer
Dr. Julie Thomas
Guest Editors

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• bacteriophage ecology
• bacteriophage pharmacology
• intercell communication of bacteria
• phage-host interactions
• phage-host recognition
• phage receptors
• phage therapy