Isolation and Characterization of Lytic Phages Infecting Clinical from Tunisia.

: is an opportunistic pathogen that causes a wide range of infections worldwide. The emergence and spread of multidrug-resistant clones requires the implementation of novel therapeutics, and phages are a promising approach. : In this study, two phages, KpTDp1 and KpTDp2, were isolated from wastewater samples in Tunisia.

Isolation and characterization of two novel bacteriophages against carbapenem-resistant .

The increase of antibiotic-resistant bacteria has become a global health emergency and the need to explore alternative therapeutic options arises. Phage therapy uses bacteriophages to target specific bacterial strains. Phages are highly specific and can target resistant bacteria.

Low Silver/Copper Exchange in a Copper-Phosphate Enzyme Nanoflower Hybrid Extremely Enhanced Antimicrobial Efficacy against Multidrug Resistant Bacteria.

Infections caused by bacteria that are resistant to many drugs are a major threat to public health in many countries around the world. Here we demonstrate the creation of heterogeneous catalytic nanomaterials with outstanding antimicrobial properties against several superbugs. We have shown that replacing a small amount of copper in a generated copper-phosphate-enzyme nanoflower hybrid with silver drastically increases the antimicrobial capacity of the nanomaterial.

Targeted phage hunting to specific clinical isolates is an efficient antibiotic resistance and infection control strategy.

is one of the most threatening multi-drug-resistant pathogens today, with phage therapy being a promising alternative for personalized treatments. However, the intrinsic capsule diversity in spp. poses a substantial barrier to the phage host range, complicating the development of broad-spectrum phage-based treatments.

DepoScope: Accurate phage depolymerase annotation and domain delineation using large language models.

Bacteriophages (phages) are viruses that infect bacteria. Many of them produce specific enzymes called depolymerases to break down external polysaccharide structures. Accurate annotation and domain identification of these depolymerases are challenging due to their inherent sequence diversity.

Neutralizing antibodies after nebulized phage therapy in cystic fibrosis patients.

Background: Cystic fibrosis (CF) patients are prone to recurrent multi-drug-resistant (MDR) bacterial lung infections. Under this scenario, phage therapy has been proposed as a promising tool. However, the limited number of reported cases hampers the understanding of clinical outcomes.

Fighting Infantis: bacteriophage-driven cleaning and disinfection strategies for broiler farms.

Introduction: is a bacterium that can cause food-borne infections and is responsible for the most common gastrointestinal illnesses. The emergence of multi-drug resistant (MDR) strains worldwide is a major threat, representing a major challenge in public health. To reduce its incidence, the One Health approach is required, and the development of new biocontrol protocols will help prevent or eliminate the spread of .

Prediction of Klebsiella phage-host specificity at the strain level.

Phages are increasingly considered promising alternatives to target drug-resistant bacterial pathogens. However, their often-narrow host range can make it challenging to find matching phages against bacteria of interest. Current computational tools do not accurately predict interactions at the strain level in a way that is relevant and properly evaluated for practical use.

Capsules and their traits shape phage susceptibility and plasmid conjugation efficiency.

Bacterial evolution is affected by mobile genetic elements like phages and conjugative plasmids, offering new adaptive traits while incurring fitness costs. Their infection is affected by the bacterial capsule. Yet, its importance has been difficult to quantify because of the high diversity of confounding mechanisms in bacterial genomes such as anti-viral systems and surface receptor modifications.

Broad-range capsule-dependent lytic against sp.

The emergence of multi-drug resistant bacteria is a global health problem. Among them, is considered a high-priority pathogen, making it necessary to develop new therapeutic tools to reduce the bacterial burden in an effective and sustainable manner. Phages, bacterial viruses, are very promising tools.

Phages and Nanotechnology: New Insights against Multidrug-Resistant Bacteria.

Bacterial infections are a major threat to the human healthcare system worldwide, as antibiotics are becoming less effective due to the emergence of multidrug-resistant strains. Therefore, there is a need to explore nontraditional antimicrobial alternatives to support rapid interventions and combat the spread of pathogenic bacteria. New nonantibiotic approaches are being developed, many of them at the interface of physics, nanotechnology, and microbiology.

Design and Synthesis of Copper Nanobiomaterials with Antimicrobial Properties.

In this work, nanostructured copper materials have been designed, synthetized, and evaluated in order to produce a more efficient and sustainable copper bionanohybrid with catalytical and antimicrobial properties. Thus, conditions are sought where the most critical steps are reduced or minimized, such as the use of reducing agents or the cryogenization step. In addition, the new materials have been characterized through different techniques, and their oxidative and reductive capacities, as well as their antimicrobial activity, have been evaluated.

Inference of the Life Cycle of Environmental Phages from Genomic Signature Distances to Their Hosts.

The environmental impact of uncultured phages is shaped by their preferred life cycle (lytic or lysogenic). However, our ability to predict it is very limited. We aimed to discriminate between lytic and lysogenic phages by comparing the similarity of their genomic signatures to those of their hosts, reflecting their co-evolution.

Natural Killers: Opportunities and Challenges for the Use of Bacteriophages in Microbial Food Safety from the One Health Perspective.

Ingestion of food or water contaminated with pathogenic bacteria may cause serious diseases. The One Health approach may help to ensure food safety by anticipating, preventing, detecting, and controlling diseases that spread between animals, humans, and the environment. This concept pays special attention to the increasing spread and dissemination of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which are considered one of the most important environment-related human and animal health hazards.

Genetic determinants of host tropism in Klebsiella phages.

Bacteriophages play key roles in bacterial ecology and evolution and are potential antimicrobials. However, the determinants of phage-host specificity remain elusive. Here, we isolate 46 phages to challenge 138 representative clinical isolates of Klebsiella pneumoniae, a widespread opportunistic pathogen.

Essential Topics for the Regulatory Consideration of Phages as Clinically Valuable Therapeutic Agents: A Perspective from Spain.

Antibiotic resistance is one of the major challenges that humankind shall face in the short term. (Bacterio)phage therapy is a valuable therapeutic alternative to antibiotics and, although the concept is almost as old as the discovery of phages, its wide application was hindered in the West by the discovery and development of antibiotics in the mid-twentieth century. However, research on phage therapy is currently experiencing a renaissance due to the antimicrobial resistance problem.

The role of PemIK (PemK/PemI) type II TA system from Klebsiella pneumoniae clinical strains in lytic phage infection.

Since their discovery, toxin-antitoxin (TA) systems have captivated the attention of many scientists. Recent studies have demonstrated that TA systems play a key role in phage inhibition. The aim of the present study was to investigate the role of the PemIK (PemK/PemI) type II TA system in phage inhibition by its intrinsic expression in clinical strains of Klebsiella pneumoniae carrying the lncL plasmid, which harbours the carbapenemase OXA-48 and the PemK/PemI TA system.

Phenotypic and Genomic Comparison of Lytic Phages: vB_KpnM-VAC66 and vB_KpnM-VAC13.

is a human pathogen that worsens the prognosis of many immunocompromised patients. Here, we annotated and compared the genomes of two lytic phages that infect clinical strains of (vB_KpnM-VAC13 and vB_KpnM-VAC66) and phenotypically characterized vB_KpnM-VAC66 (time of adsorption of 12 min, burst size of 31.49 ± 0.

CRISPR-Cas12a-Based Detection of SARS-CoV-2 Harboring the E484K Mutation.

The novel respiratory virus SARS-CoV-2 is rapidly evolving across the world with the potential of increasing its transmission and the induced disease. Here, we applied the CRISPR-Cas12a system to detect, without the need of sequencing, SARS-CoV-2 genomes harboring the E484K mutation, first identified in the Beta variant and catalogued as an escape mutation. The E484K mutation creates a canonical protospacer adjacent motif for Cas12a recognition in the resulting DNA amplicon, which was exploited to obtain a differential readout.

Lack of evidence for infectious SARS-CoV-2 in feces and sewage.

The SARS-CoV-2 can be excreted in feces and can reach sewage systems. Determining the presence of infective viral particles in feces and sewage is necessary to take adequate control measures and to elucidate new routes of transmission. Here, we have developed a sample concentration methodology that allows us to maintain viral infectivity.

Enhanced Antibacterial Activity of Repurposed Mitomycin C and Imipenem in Combination with the Lytic Phage vB_KpnM-VAC13 against Clinical Isolates of Klebsiella pneumoniae.

Klebsiella pneumoniae is an opportunistic Gram-negative pathogen that employs different strategies (resistance and persistence) to counteract antibiotic treatments. This study aimed to search for new means of combatting imipenem-resistant and persister strains of K. pneumoniae by repurposing the anticancer drug mitomycin C as an antimicrobial agent and by combining the drug and the conventional antibiotic imipenem with the lytic phage vB_KpnM-VAC13.

Phage Therapy in Livestock and Companion Animals.

The irrational use of antibiotics has led to a high emergence of multi-drug resistant (MDR) bacteria. The traditional overuse of antibiotics in the animal feed industry plays a crucial role in the emergence of these pathogens that pose both economic and health problems. In addition, antibiotics have also recently experienced an increase to treat companion animal infections, promoting the emergence of MDR bacteria in pets, which can reach humans.

Experimental virus evolution in cancer cell monolayers, spheroids, and tissue explants.

Viral laboratory evolution has been used for different applications, such as modeling viral emergence, drug-resistance prediction, and therapeutic virus optimization. However, these studies have been mainly performed in cell monolayers, a highly simplified environment, raising concerns about their applicability and relevance. To address this, we compared the evolution of a model virus in monolayers, spheroids, and tissue explants.

Learning From Mistakes: The Role of Phages in Pandemics.

The misuse of antibiotics is leading to the emergence of multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacteria, and in the absence of available treatments, this has become a major global threat. In the middle of the recent severe acute respiratory coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic, which has challenged the whole world, the emergence of MDR bacteria is increasing due to prophylactic administration of antibiotics to intensive care unit patients to prevent secondary bacterial infections. This is just an example underscoring the need to seek alternative treatments against MDR bacteria.

Phage Therapy in Gastrointestinal Diseases.

Gastrointestinal tract microbiota plays a key role in the regulation of the pathogenesis of several gastrointestinal diseases. In particular, the viral fraction, composed essentially of bacteriophages, influences homeostasis by exerting a selective pressure on the bacterial communities living in the tract. Gastrointestinal inflammatory diseases are mainly induced by bacteria, and have risen due to the emergence of antibiotic resistant strains.