Research progress in the application of bacteriophages as indicator viruses

Abstract:

Bacteriophages, a group of viruses that infect bacteria, have common features with eukaryotic viruses in the biological properties, such as morphology, size, and structural composition. The laboratory operation on bacteriophages is simple and has high safety, which demonstrates great advantages in culture, counting, stability, and susceptibility. Therefore, the research and application of bacteriophages as the indicator viruses for simulating or substituting eukaryotic viruses has attracted wide attention with certain progress achieved. This paper introduces the advantages of bacteriophages as indicator viruses and summarizes the feasibility evidence, cases, and difficult problems of bacteriophages application in the virus removal evaluation, disinfection effect evaluation, research on virus transmission patterns, and environment and water quality monitoring. In addition, considering the shortcomings, this paper puts forward suggestions and prospects for the research and application of bacteriophages as indicator viruses in the future.