Mycobacteriophagemids: A Synthetic Biology Approach to Rapid and Low-Cost Mycobacterium tuberculosis Concentration and Lysis

Sam Nugen of Cornell University in the U.S. will develop a bacteriophage-based system for the rapid concentration and lysis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis from patient samples to enhance TB diagnosis. A mycobacteriophage will be engineered to express the streptavidin protein, enabling low-cost magnetic particles to capture and concentrate the phage along with the TB bacterium to which it naturally binds. The phage will also be engineered to accelerate lysis of the TB bacterium after it is bound, and phage replication genes will be deleted to ensure that the phage can only replicate in a modified host bacterium or an in vitro system, not self-replicate. This low-cost, easily propagated system provides a streamlined, instrument-free solution to improve the efficiency of TB diagnosis in resource-limited settings.