Pathways to synthetic bacteriophages for phage therapy: Do tRNAs control host range and virulence?

In this project, the interaction between bacteriophage and their bacterial hosts will be examined in terms of their tRNA content. The main focus of this project will be the provenance and role of tRNAs in phage in terms of host range and virulence. The tRNA content in host and bacterial genomes will be examined to evaluate whether there is evidence for co-evolution between bacteriophage and their bacterial hosts.This will be complemented with a study on bacteriophage tRNAs and bacterial codons to unveil whether they code for the same or different tRNAs, examining the identities of the tRNAs in question.
This project will aim to create a model system using Klebsiella sp. and Bilbo and Aura phage. Once isolated from the environment, Klebsiella strains will be infected with Bilbo and Aura phage. The strains susceptible to only one of the two phage will then be selected. Phage tRNAs will be sequentially knocked out, and their virulence and host range will be compared against their "wild type" counterparts.