Background: Phage tail-like bacteriocins, or tailocins, provide a competitive advantage to producer cells by killing closely related bacteria. Morphologically similar to headless phages, their narrow target specificity is determined by receptor-binding proteins (RBPs). While RBP engineering has been used to alter the target
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Background: Phage tail-like bacteriocins, or tailocins, provide a competitive advantage to producer cells by killing closely related bacteria. Morphologically similar to headless phages, their narrow target specificity is determined by receptor-binding proteins (RBPs). While RBP engineering has been used to alter the target range of a selected R2 tailocin from
Pseudomonas aeruginosa, the process is labor-intensive, limiting broader application.
Methods: We introduce a VersaTile-driven R2 tailocin engineering and screening platform to scale up RBP grafting.
Results: This platform achieved three key milestones: (I) engineering R2 tailocins specific to
Escherichia coli serogroups O26, O103, O104, O111, O145, O146, and O157; (II) reprogramming R2 tailocins to target, for the first time, the capsule and a new species, specifically the capsular serotype K1 of
E. coli and K11 and K63 of
Klebsiella pneumoniae; (III) creating the first bivalent tailocin with a branched RBP and cross-species activity, effective against both
E. coli K1 and
K. pneumoniae K11. Over 90% of engineered tailocins were effective, with clear pathways for further optimization identified.
Conclusions: This work lays the groundwork for a scalable platform for the development of engineered tailocins, marking an important step towards making R2 tailocins a practical therapeutic tool for targeted bacterial infections.
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