Translating phage therapy into the clinic: Recent accomplishments but continuing challenges.

Phage therapy is a medical form of biological control of bacterial infections, one that uses naturally occurring viruses, called bacteriophages or phages, as antibacterial agents. Pioneered over 100 years ago, phage therapy nonetheless is currently experiencing a resurgence in interest, with growing numbers of clinical case studies being published. This renewed enthusiasm is due in large part to phage therapy holding promise for providing safe and effective cures for bacterial infections that traditional antibiotics acting alone have been unable to clear.

Do Species Represent Novel Sources of Phenolic Based Antimicrobial Agents?

species have been recognized as potential antimicrobial (AM) agents and have been used in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) for a long time. The aim of this study is to examine the AM potential of autochthonous species (, , and ) from Serbia. The extraction of fungal material was prepared in different solvents (ethanol-EtOH, water-HO, chloroform-CHCl).

Pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics of phage therapy: a major hurdle to clinical translation.

Background: The increasing emergence of antimicrobial resistance worldwide has led to renewed interest in phage therapy. Unlike antibiotics, the lack of pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics (PK/PD) information represents a major challenge for phage therapy. As therapeutic phages are biological entities with the ability to self-replicate in the presence of susceptible bacteria, their PK/PD is far more complicated than that of antibiotics.

L-Form Switching in Escherichia coli as a Common β-Lactam Resistance Mechanism.

Cell wall deficient bacterial L-forms are induced by exposure to cell wall-targeting antibiotics and immune effectors such as lysozyme. L-forms of different bacteria (including Escherichia coli) have been reported in human infections, but whether this is a normal adaptive strategy or simply an artifact of antibiotic treatment in certain bacterial species remains unclear. Here we show that members of a representative, diverse set of pathogenic E.

Biological foundations of successful bacteriophage therapy.

Bacteriophages (phages) are selective viral predators of bacteria. Abundant and ubiquitous in nature, phages can be used to treat bacterial infections (phage therapy), including refractory infections and those resistant to antibiotics. However, despite an abundance of anecdotal evidence of efficacy, significant hurdles remain before routine implementation of phage therapy into medical practice, including a dearth of robust clinical trial data.

Phages from Genus and Phage Therapy: Pseudomonas Phage Delta Case.

The applicability and safety of bacteriophage Delta as a potential anti- agent belonging to genus (family ) was characterised. Phage Delta belongs to the species , which has been described as a temperate, with sites at the end of the genome. The phage Delta possesses a genome of 45,970 bp that encodes tRNA for proline (Pro), aspartic acid (Asp) and asparagine (Asn) and does not encode any known protein involved in lysogeny formation or persistence.

Are Siphoviruses (Genus ) Appropriate for Phage Therapy-Bacterial Allies or Foes?

is a respiratory animal pathogen that shows growing resistance to commonly used antibiotics, which has necessitated the examination of new antimicrobials, including bacteriophages. In this study, we examined the previously isolated and partially characterized siphoviruses of the genus (LK3, CN1, CN2, FP1 and MW2) for their ability to inhibit bacterial growth and biofilm, and we examined other therapeutically important properties through genomic analysis and lysogeny experiments. The phages inhibited bacterial growth at a low multiplicity of infection (MOI = 0.

Bacterial lysis, autophagy and innate immune responses during adjunctive phage therapy in a child.

Adjunctive phage therapy was used in an attempt to avoid catastrophic outcomes from extensive chronic Pseudomonas aeruginosa osteoarticular infection in a 7-year-old child. Monitoring of phage and bacterial kinetics allowed real-time phage dose adjustment, and along with markers of the human host response, indicated a significant therapeutic effect within two weeks of starting adjunctive phage therapy. These findings strongly suggested the release of bacterial cells or cell fragments into the bloodstream from deep bony infection sites early in treatment.

Publisher Correction: Safety of bacteriophage therapy in severe Staphylococcus aureus infection.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

Safety of bacteriophage therapy in severe Staphylococcus aureus infection.

In this single-arm non-comparative trial, 13 patients in an Australian hospital with severe Staphylococcus aureus infections were intravenously administered a good manufacturing practice-quality preparation of three Myoviridae bacteriophages (AB-SA01) as adjunctive therapy. AB-SA01 was intravenously administered twice daily for 14 d and the clinical, haematological and blood biochemical parameters of the recipients were monitored for 90 d. The primary outcome was the assessment of safety and tolerability (that is, pain and redness at the infusion site and systemic adverse reactions, such as fever, tachycardia, hypotension, diarrhoea or abdominal pain and the development of renal or hepatic dysfunction).

Phage therapy for severe bacterial infections: a narrative review.

Bacteriophage (phage) therapy is re-emerging a century after it began. Activity against antibiotic-resistant pathogens and a lack of serious side effects make phage therapy an attractive treatment option in refractory bacterial infections. Phages are highly specific for their bacterial targets, but the relationship between in vitro activity and in vivo efficacy remains to be rigorously evaluated.