Bacteriophages applications in agriculture

Abstract

The bacteriophages life cycle has two stages: a lytic stage where the phages reproduce inside the bacteria and lyse bacteria and a lysogenic stage where the phage is in a stationary stage where do not exist phage reproduction. The understanding of the life cycle of phages is fundamental to understand the advantages of phage offers as biological control applications and how engineered phages work. The bacteriophages are an alternative to fight against the antimicrobial or pesticides because phages offer advantages such as high host specificity, the ability of long term effect, are active against dividing or not dividing bacterial cells, effective elimination of biofilms and are capable vehicles for nucleic acids delivery. Phages have been isolated from water or soil samples in different parts of the world and for specific bacterial pathogens. In the following review, in the main topics in bacteriophages and its applications in agriculture: the bacteriophages life cycle, advantages of phages in biological control applications, the last isolated phages and described for different pathogens and the last advances in phage engineering applications for biological control.