Authors: Abby E Smartt Tingting Xu Patricia Jegier Jessica J Carswell Samuel A Blount Gary S Sayler Steven Ripp
Publish Date: 2011/11/20
Volume: 402, Issue: 10, Pages: 3127-3146
Abstract
Bacteriophages or phages are bacterial viruses that can infect a broad or narrow range of host organisms Knowing the host range of a phage allows it to be exploited in targeting various pathogens Applying phages for the identification of microorganisms related to food and waterborne pathogens and pathogens of clinical significance to humans and animals has a long history and there has to some extent been a recent revival in these applications as phages have become more extensively integrated into novel detection identification and monitoring technologies Biotechnological and genetic engineering strategies applied to phages are responsible for some of these new methods but even natural unmodified phages are widely applicable when paired with appropriate innovative detector platforms This review highlights the use of phages as pathogen detector interfaces to provide the reader with an uptodate inventory of phagebased biodetection strategiesPortions of this review reflecting work by the authors were supported by the US Department of Agriculture Biotechnology Risk Assessment Program the Armed Forces Medical Intelligence Command the NASA Advanced Human Support Technology Program the Army Defense University Research Instrumentation Program and the Office of Naval Research
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