Grant: Operating Grant

Bacterial infections, both community and hospital acquired, create a significant burden on the Canadian health care system. The emergence and progression of many infectious bacterial diseases are influenced by a group of viruses, called bacteriophages, which are able to infect and co-exist within their bacterial hosts. It has become increasingly clear that bacteriophages play a major role in increasing the severity of infection by many disease-causing bacteria by controlling the production of virulence factors. For example, the toxins that result in severe illness in diphtheria, botulism, and cholera are produced as a result of the presence of bacteriophages contained within the bacterial cells. The bacteriophages that encode these toxin genes are able to move from one bacterial strain to another and can convert a harmless strain into a pathogenic one. This proposal describes a multi-faceted approach to the study of the effects of phages on bacterial pathogenesis. The focus of this work is on phages that infect Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which can cause a variety of infections in Cystic Fibrosis and immunocompromised patients.