Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => Cells, Microbes & Viruses => Topic started by: Nimmie on 23/08/2017 10:42:39
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Production of secondary metabolites (antibiotics) by micro-organisms, e.g Streptomyces spp., is due to competition (one of the reasons) with other microbes. So far, antibiotics do not work on viruses; is it possible to put them in competition with other microbes, maybe antibiotics would be produced against it?
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Viruses are in competition with bacteria. There are a large variety of bacteriophages - viruses that prey on bacteria.
- These bacteriophages have been used to combat bacterial infections, using phage therapy.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacteriophage
And bacteria have developed defences against viruses:
- A mutation that changes proteins on the bacterial coat so the bacteriophage does not recognize it will spread through the bacterial population.
- The CRISPR (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRISPR) system so popular today for gene editing is found in nature as a bacterial defence against invading viruses. The bacterium cuts up the viral DNA so it can't take over the cell.
As for using bacteria to fight viruses, I guess you could treat someone exposed to ebola virus with a therapeutic dose of cholera. This would stop you dying from ebola - ebola symptoms start after a few weeks, while cholera could kill you from dehydration in a few days :-\ ... But I don't know why you would bother.
Warning: Do not try this at home!
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Evan_au you probably misunderstood me,let me explain better. For instance lets say you isolate species of Streptomyces spp from soil samples and then your culture these isolates with some test organsims e.g Salmonella spp,Aspergillus spp after some days due to competition for nutrient, space, it is seen that theStreptomyces spp produces substance that prevent the growth of these test organisms. Competition does not mean infection. Bacteriophages infect bacteria, they do not compete with bacteria for food or space. CRISPR on the other hand is not a secondary metabolite and it is not as a result of competition between viruses and bacteria. Now back to my question- I understand culture techniques for viruses and other microbes are different as viruses need a living host to survive,but is it possible to get viruses and other micro-organisms to compete? Looking at the ecology of viruses, probably if found in the same ecosystem with these other micro-organsim they could compete
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Bacteria don't face a threat from the forms of virus that trouble more complicated cells, like ours. Bacteria do have their own viruses, called bacteriophages, which @evan_au has mentioned above. But because bacterial and human cells differ enormously, viruses adapted to affect our cells cannot even get into a bacterial cell. As such, there is relatively little selective pressure to encourage bacteria to evolve antibiotic compounds that will hit human viruses. That said, bacteria-targeting viruses, like phages, and human-targeting viruses will share some common features, and hence there may be mechanisms evolved by bacteria that can be used to neutralise human viruses.
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The problem with viruses is that it doesn't have any functional organoids (little structures for specific functions such as protein synthesis, digestion, excretion etc).
Bacteria has organoids and a wall which you can target with antibiotics. Viruses don't. That's the main problem.
Modern antiviral drugs work by triggering anti-replication defense against viruses (eg. interferon Beta).
It would be very difficult to discover drugs which are as effective on viruses, as antibiotics are effective for bacteria.