Mortality caused by viruses and phages can have a major impact on ocean productivity and change the flow of nutrients in the marine microbial food web. The isolation and culture of marine phages indicate that they are ubiquitous in seawater, and direct counts indicate that the total number of viruses often exceeds the bacterial concentration by 10 times. The spherical protrusion on the head of the phage appears to be a morphological feature that is more common in marine phages than in phages from other sources. The cultured phages are usually much larger than most viruses observed through direct transmission electron microscopy of seawater samples, indicating that the culture method cannot provide unbiased environmental virus samples.
When you send us samples for phage detection, you can ensure that they are handled properly. Our state-of-the-art laboratory provides all necessary equipment, including transmission electron microscopes, and our scientists have extensive knowledge, training, and experience in phage work. Most of them have completed phage biology and molecular biology or microbiology PhDs.
At Creative Biolabs, our team provides comprehensive phage testing services for all types of samples collected at your facility. We provide lysed phage and prophage tests and report estimated phage titer of contamination. To supplement testing, we provide phage identification services, including electron microscopy and genome sequencing.
At Creative Biolabs, we pay special attention to selecting bacterial indicator strains for phage detection tests to avoid false-negative results and utilize our wide range of bacterial strains. Each sample is tested against a series of bacterial strains optimized for your sample and this personalized approach guarantees that we will not miss the presence of phages in any sample sent to us, regardless of the nature of the sample.
At Creative Biolabs, we apply different methods for your samples, and each of them works well for the samples. The methods we will use has been tested hundreds of times.
| Method | Duration | Manual labor |
|---|---|---|
| Double agar overlay assay (DLA) | 1 - 2 days | Simple, effective, |
| Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) | 2 - 3 days | Works well with unknown phages |
| Flow cytometry | 4 - 12 h | Can detect different phages in a sample |
| qPCR/RT-qPCR | 2 - 6 h | Precise |
| Droplet digital PCR (ddPCR) | 2 - 6 h | No need for internal standards |
| Mass spectrometry | 2 - 3 days | Accurate |
| Illumina sequencing | 3 - 4 days | Works well |
| PacBio sequencing | 2 - 5 days | Prone to sequencing errors |
Creative Biolabs can meet the needs of customers for providing phage detection services on time and on budget. Our skilled and dedicated scientific researchers ensure that the most suitable methods and techniques are selected for each professional for your project. If necessary, please feel free to contact us.
Please kindly note that our services can only be used to support research purposes (Not for clinical use).
Creative Biolabs is a globally recognized phage company. Creative Biolabs is committed to providing researchers with the most reliable service and the most competitive price.
