Advances in phage-host interaction prediction: in silico method enhances the development of phage therapies

Brief Bioinform. 2024 Mar 27;25(3):bbae117. doi: 10.1093/bib/bbae117.ABSTRACTPhages can specifically recognize and kill bacteria, which lead to important application value of bacteriophage in bacterial identification and typing, livestock aquaculture and treatment of human bacterial infection. Considering the variety of human-infected bacteria and the continuous discovery of numerous pathogenic bacteria, screening suitable therapeutic phages that are capable of infecting pathogens from massive phage databases has been a principal step in phage therapy design. Experimental methods to identify phage-host interaction (PHI) are time-consuming and expensive; high-throughput computational method to predict PHI is therefore a potential substitute. Here, we systemically review bioinformatic methods for predicting PHI, introduce reference databases and in silico models applied in these methods and highlight the strengths and challenges of current tools. Finally, we discuss the application scope and future research direction of computational prediction methods, which contribute to the performance improvement of prediction models and the development of personalized phage therapy.PMID:38555471 | DOI:10.1093/bib/bbae117

Source: Briefings in Bioinformatics - March 30, 2024 Category: Bioinformatics Authors: Wanchun Nie Tianyi Qiu Yiwen Wei Hao Ding Zhixiang Guo Jingxuan Qiu Source Type: research