According to research, a virus that has long been written off as a scientific curiosity has been discovered lurking in plain sight and may aid in the battle against harmful microorganisms.

The research focused on bacteriophages, also known as phages, which are viruses that infect bacteria and may take many different forms. Researchers specifically looked at telomere phages, a kind of phage that was previously thought of as a “curiosity”.

According to the Xinhua news agency, these viruses are more than simply passive passengers; they may even aid beneficial bacteria in eliminating nearby harmful ones.

Only their distinct DNA replication process was deciphered by earlier research. According to recent research that was published in Science Advances, bacteria that contain telomere phages generate poisons that eliminate competing germs.

Telomere phage was found to be remarkably prevalent in Klebsiella by researchers from Monash University in Australia. Pneumonia and severe drug-resistant infections may be caused by the bacterium Klebsiella.

For almost two decades of rigorous bacterial genome research, telomere phages had gone unseen. The director of the Bacterial Cell life Lab at the Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute, Trevor Lithgow, said, “We have missed an entire aspect of biology.”

According to Lithgow, a fourth telomere phage was discovered via the sequencing of a clinical strain of Klebsiella.

Telomere phages are not uncommon oddities, according to the investigation. According to the study, they are quite common among the hundreds of Klebsiella lineages, including strains that were gathered from canal habitats.

Additionally, the identification of toxins—known as “telocins” for telomere-phage toxins—was discovered to facilitate a technique for managing bacteria. According to Lithgow, the “bad” bacteria would be antibiotic-resistant Klebsiella, while the “good” bacteria harbouring telomere phages would eliminate nearby “bad” Klebsiella.

Sally Byers of the Lithgow Laboratory said, “We now want to understand how the host secretes the toxin and also understand how the toxin wheedles its way into the unsuspecting bacterial neighbours.”

The group thinks that many other bacteria may also harbour similar beneficial viruses.