ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2015
Subdiffusive motion of bacteriophage in mucosal surfaces increases the frequency of bacterial encounters.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 116 papers.
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Who cites it
116 citing papers in PubMed, 221 citations in OpenAlex.
- Evaluation of a phage-inclusive multimodal strategy for recurrent urinary tract infections.BMC microbiology · 2026Article
- Characterization ofMicrobiology spectrum · 2026Article
- Strong mucosal adhesion enhances the anti-infective effectiveness of T4-like phages.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2026Article
- Molecular rotors reveal the 3D viscous habitat of mucus-colonizing bacteria.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Rage against the mean: a perspective on measuring fitness of individual phage particles.Npj viruses · 2026Review
- The epidermal ecotone: a proposed model system for marine viral ecology at the animal-environmental interface.NPJ biofilms and microbiomes · 2026Review
- Discrete long-range on-cell motion of bacteriophage T4.Microbiology spectrum · 2026Article
- Beyond bacterial dysbiosis: the emerging role of gut bacteriophages in type 2 diabetes.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2026Review
- When bacteriophages encounter macrophages during their journey through the human body.Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2026Review
- Searching for the perfect match: can non-antibiotic antimicrobials improve bacteriophage performance?Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2026Review
- Microgravity reshapes bacteriophage-host coevolution aboard the International Space Station.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- Innovative engineering approaches to model host-microbiome interactions in vitro.Advanced drug delivery reviews · 2025Review
- Development of Silica Nanoparticles Embedded Adipose Spheroid Platform for Probing Bacteriophage Sequestration and Its Implications for Phage Therapy.Nanomaterials (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Gut Virome and Aging: Phage-Driven Microbial Stability and Immune Modulation.Aging and disease · 2025Review
- Phage-mediated TLR2 signaling attenuates intracellular Mycobacterium abscessus survival in macrophages.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- An Exploration of the Relationship Between Gut Virome and Cardiovascular Disease: A Comprehensive Review.Reviews in cardiovascular medicine · 2025Review
- Distinct effects of mucin on phage-host interactions in model systems of beneficial and pathogenic bacteria.Archives of virology · 2025Article
- A Modular Bacteriophage T4 Nanoparticle Platform Enables Rapid Design of Dual COVID-19-Flu Mucosal Vaccines.Small science · 2025Article
- Article
- Microscopic phage adsorption assay: High-throughput quantification of virus particle attachment to host bacterial cells.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
56 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
15 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Bacteriophages (phages) defend mucosal surfaces against bacterial infections. However, their complex interactions with their bacterial hosts and with the mucus-covered epithelium remain mostly unexplored. Our previous work demonstrated that T4 phage with Hoc proteins exposed on their capsid adhered to mucin glycoproteins and protected mucus-producing tissue culture cells in vitro. On this basis, we proposed our bacteriophage adherence to mucus (BAM) model of immunity. Here, to test this model, we developed a microfluidic device (chip) that emulates a mucosal surface experiencing constant fluid flow and mucin secretion dynamics. Using mucus-producing human cells and Escherichia coli in the chip, we observed similar accumulation and persistence of mucus-adherent T4 phage and nonadherent T4∆hoc phage in the mucus. Nevertheless, T4 phage reduced bacterial colonization of the epithelium >4,000-fold compared with T4∆hoc phage. This suggests that phage adherence to mucus increases encounters with bacterial hosts by some other mechanism. Phages are traditionally thought to be completely dependent on normal diffusion, driven by random Brownian motion, for host contact. We demonstrated that T4 phage particles displayed subdiffusive motion in mucus, whereas T4∆hoc particles displayed normal diffusion. Experiments and modeling indicate that subdiffusive motion increases phage-host encounters when bacterial concentration is low. By concentrating phages in an optimal mucus zone, subdiffusion increases their host encounters and antimicrobial action. Our revised BAM model proposes that the fundamental mechanism of mucosal immunity is subdiffusion resulting from adherence to mucus. These findings suggest intriguing possibilities for engineering phages to manipulate and personalize the mucosal microbiome.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.