Genetic variants of Mycobacterium smegmatis and the lytic mycobacteriophage D29

This project determines different genetic changes in M. smegmatis strains that are resistant to the lytic mycobacteriophage D29. In addition, it also determines the corresponding genetic changes in D29 that enable the phage to overcome bacterial resistance. MsWt is the parent strain (i.e wild type M. smegmatis mc2 155), whereas the remaining strains are D29-resistant mutants. D29 is the parent phage (i.e wild type mycobacteriophage D29), whereas tD29-1 and tD29-3 are defense escape mutants that overcame the D29 resistance phenotype of the strain B6.1. tD29-1 and tD29-3 were obtained by co-evolutionary training of D29 with MsWt.