System for protein inactivation and recombinant phages for targeted bacterial killing, infection, biodetection, and as a means of protein extraction

Abstract

Recombinant phages that infect and kill bacterial hosts in response to user-defined inputs are provided. The components that encode the user-defined inputs can be combined, such that multiple inputs are maintained on a single recombinant phage, enabling precise control over the targeting strategy. The phages can be engineered to kill a specific bacterial species or multiple species simultaneously. Recombinant phages can also be engineered to harbor fluorescent and bioluminescent reporter genes that enable them to be used for tracking, detection, and in biosensing applications. Recombinant phages can also be used to lyse bacterial cells that produce recombinant proteins, as a rapid method to enable extraction and high-level purification of potentially valuable and/or industrially important proteins. Systems are provided that can be used to control the activity of a protein of interest, by taking advantage of an interaction between Qtip and a phage repressor protein.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.