Poly(acrylic acid) prevents bacteriophage infection of bacterial hosts

University of Warwick and Cytiva authors show that poly(acrylic acid) prevents phage-induced killing of bacterial hosts and phage replication without affecting induction of recombinant protein expression, and was more active than poly(methacrylic acid). Initial evidence points to a virustatic rather than virucidal mechanism; the authors present the low-cost additive as a scalable way to reduce phage contamination in bioprocessing (J Am Chem Soc, 2023).