A standard approach to tropism variation in M13 bacteriophage

Antibiotic resistance is a globally recognized issue of great concern. While research for novel antibiotics races against evolution to find effective molecules, the scientific community is looking for new possible approaches to face this problem. Bacteriophages are the possible solution: although currently used only as compassionate therapy in situations where no other viable option is available, they could represent the next frontier. In this work, an approach to tropism variation based on synthetic biology is proposed, with the purpose of building a resilient platform to produce engineered M13 bacteriophages with the desired tropism determinant. Moreover, a standard helper plasmid is introduced as a fast and efficient way to produce phage particles inside packaging cells, by easily co-transforming the helper plasmid and the desired phage genome. The generation of a Biobrick RFC[10] standard-compatible helper plasmid that utilizes tropism-determinant genes as interchangeable parts allows to swap between genes to modify the tropism. In this way, it will be easier to develop new particles in order to fit for different purposes, ranging from therapeutics to protein library screenings.