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!JRon@n !JRon@n
wrote...
Posts: 91
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11 years ago
Since bacteriophages attack only bacteria. Bacteria can enter the human body, and there are bacteria living in the human body, so what would happen if bacteriophages were to reproduce within the bacteria inside of us? Does anyone know if it's happened before (my guess would be yes) and if we would have any side effects? Like, are there bacteria in us that are important to us, and would we be affected by their destruction?

I'm incredibly curious and can't find a whole lot on google.
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wrote...
11 years ago
Our immune system is designed to recognize /anything/ that's not in our body. So I think that if you put in the bacteriophage, it would probably get digested (it's not enveloped, just a capsid, which is entirely protein and thus easily digested in the mouth, then the gut). Once in the gut, if it's not completely broken down, i'd imagine that the bacteriophage would probably try to attack the fauna within the gut (try to replicate) but the galt system in the gut (an immune pathway which stores a ton of memory  B cells would destor it in a heartbeat. Otherwise, if it's not attacked, it would just add to the ecology of your gut.
wrote...
11 years ago
We have essential bacteria in our mouths, throat, stomach, kidneys so on and so forth. A bacteriophage can attack any of these bacteria and kill them. For example if this happened to the important bacteria in the digestive tract digestion, and nutrient absorption would be greatly affected. Take this analogy, a infectious bacteria is to a human as a bacteriophage is to vital bacteria. That should clear things up.
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