Bacteriophages are obligate parasites of bacteria characterized by the breadth of hosts that they can infect. This ‘host range’ depends on the genotypes and morphologies of the phage and the bacterial host, but also on the environment in which they are interacting. Understanding phage host range is critical to predicting the impacts of these parasites in their natural host communities and their utility as therapeutic agents, but is also key to predicting how phages evolve and in doing so drive evolutionary change in their host populations, including through movement of genes among unrelated bacterial genomes. Here, we explore the drivers of phage infection and host range from the molecular underpinnings of the phage-host interaction to the ecological context in which they occur. We further evaluate the importance of intrinsic, transient, and environment drivers shaping phage infection and replication, and discuss how each influence host range over evolutionary time. The host range of phages has great consequences in phage-based application strategies, as well as natural community dynamics, and we therefore highlight both recent developments and key open questions in the field as phage-based therapeutics come back into focus.

中文翻译：

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噬菌体宿主范围的驱动因素和后果

噬菌体是细菌的专性寄生虫，其特征在于它们可以感染的宿主范围广泛。这个“宿主范围”取决于噬菌体和细菌宿主的基因型和形态，还取决于它们相互作用的环境。了解噬菌体宿主范围对于预测这些寄生虫对其自然宿主群落的影响及其作为治疗剂的效用至关重要，而且对于预测噬菌体如何进化并以此推动宿主种群的进化变化（包括通过噬菌体的移动）也至关重要。不相关的细菌基因组中的基因。在这里，我们探索噬菌体感染和宿主的驱动因素，从噬菌体-宿主相互作用的分子基础到它们发生的生态环境。我们进一步评估了塑造噬菌体感染和复制的内在、短暂和环境驱动因素的重要性，并讨论了每种驱动因素如何影响进化时间内的宿主范围。噬菌体的宿主范围对基于噬菌体的应用策略以及自然群落动态产生巨大影响，因此，随着基于噬菌体的治疗重新成为焦点，我们重点介绍该领域的最新进展和关键的未决问题。