{"id":13300,"date":"2025-10-27T09:57:34","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T04:27:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=13300"},"modified":"2025-10-30T12:46:40","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T07:16:40","slug":"bacteriophages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/bacteriophages\/","title":{"rendered":"What is Bacteriophage?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>About Bacteriophage:<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>A bacteriophage is a type of <a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/upsc-exam\/virus\/\" target=\"_blank\">virus<\/a><strong> that infects bacteria.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The word &#8220;bacteriophage&#8221; literally means &#8220;<strong>bacteria eater,&#8221;<\/strong> because bacteriophages <strong>destroy their host cells.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>They are the <strong>most common biological entities<\/strong> in nature.<\/li>\n<li>Also known as phages, these viruses can be <strong>found everywhere bacteria exist,<\/strong> including, in the soil, deep within the earth\u2019s crust, inside plants and animals, and even in the oceans.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li><strong>Thousands of varieties <\/strong>of phages exist, each of which may <strong>infect only one type or a few types of <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/upsc-exam\/bacteria\/\" target=\"_blank\">bacteria<\/a> or archaea.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>All bacteriophages are <strong>composed of a nucleic acid<\/strong> molecule that is <strong>surrounded by<\/strong> a <strong>protein structure<\/strong>.\n<ul>\n<li>The <strong>nucleic acid may be<\/strong> either <strong>DNA or RNA, <\/strong>and it may be double-stranded or single-stranded.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>How does it infect bacteria?<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>A bacteriophage <strong>attaches itself to a<\/strong> susceptible <strong>bacterium<\/strong> and <strong>infects the host cell.\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Following infection, the bacteriophage <strong>hijacks the bacterium&#8217;s cellular machinery<\/strong> to <strong>prevent it from producing bacterial components and<\/strong> instead <strong>forces <\/strong>the cell to<strong> produce viral components.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Eventually, <strong>new bacteriophages assemble<\/strong> and <strong>burst out of the bacterium<\/strong> in a <strong>process called lysis.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Bacteriophages <strong>occasionally remove<\/strong> a <strong>portion of their host cells&#8217; bacterial <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/upsc-exam\/dna\/\" target=\"_blank\">DNA<\/a> during the infection process and then <strong>transfer this DNA into<\/strong> the <strong>genome of new host cells<\/strong>. This process is <strong>known as transduction<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Uses:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>They are common natural entities that can <strong>destroy bacteria <\/strong>that are <strong>resistant to <\/strong>drugs such as <strong>antibiotics<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Phage therapy<\/strong> holds promising potential in the <strong>fight against antimicrobial resistance (AMR).<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Q1: What are antibiotics?<\/h3>\n<p>Antibiotics are medicines that fight bacterial infections in people and animals. They work by killing the bacteria or by making it hard for the bacteria to grow and multiply.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2024-07-lifesaving-phages-accessible-easier.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">New system makes lifesaving phages accessible, transportable and much easier to use<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A bacteriophage is a type of virus that infects bacteria.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":13301,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13300","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}