Bacteriophage-derived enzymes: from exploration to exploitation

Abstract

[Excerpt] Bacteriophages are viruses infecting bacterial cells. During their replication cycle, these viruses cross the bacterial cell wall twice. Firstly, bacteriophages have to inject their genome across the cell wall to initiate infection. Secondly, they must exit the host cell at the end of the replication cycle to infect new host cells. The principal barrier to overcome is the polysaccharides that can either be extracellular (slime or capsules) or structural (peptidoglycan). For this, bacteriophages encode two specific enzymes, called depolymerases and endolysins, to degrade these polymers to enable either infection or lysis. [...]