GS 3: Science & Technology – Awareness In The Fields Of It, Space, Computers, Robotics, Nano-Technology, Bio-Technology

Why in News?

• A study commissioned by the Union Water Resources Ministry to probe the “unique properties” of the Ganga found that the river water contains a significantly higher proportion of organisms with antibacterial properties.
• Other Indian rivers also contain these organisms but the Ganga — particularly in its upper Himalayan stretches — has more of them.

Assessing Ganges Water:

• The Nagpur based NEERI team was tasked with assessing the water quality for “radiological, microbiological and biological” parameters in the Bhagirathi and the Ganga at 20 sampling stations. As part of the assessment, five pathogenic species of bacteria (Escherichia, Enterobacter, Salmonella, Shigella, Vibrio) were selected and isolated from the Ganga, Yamuna and the Narmada. Their numbers was compared with the bacteriophages present in the river water.

Uniqueness of Ganga:

• That the Ganga may contain unique microbial life, which makes it relatively more resilient to putrefaction, was suggested by British colonial scientists about 200 years ago.
• Because bacteriophages are a kind of virus that kill bacteria, they are frequently found in proximity to each other.
• In the river Ganga, the bacteriophages were detected to be approximately 3 times more in proportion than bacterial isolates. Though it isn’t evident that there are bacteriophage species unique to the Ganga, the study suggests there are many more of them in the Ganga than in other rivers. Samples drawn from the Ganga contained almost 1,100 kinds of bacteriophage, and proportionally there were less than 200 species detected in the samples obtained from the Yamuna and the Narmada.
• However, these antibacterial properties varied widely along the length of the river.

Uses of Bacteriophages:

• Phage therapy or viral phage therapy is the therapeutic use of bacteriophages to treat pathogenic bacterial infections.
• Phage therapy has many potential applications in human medicine as well as dentistry, veterinary science, and agriculture.
• Bacteriophages are much more specific than antibiotics. They are typically harmless not only to the host organism, but also to other beneficial bacteria.