Can bacteriophages be used to treat bacterial infections?
Bacteriophages (BPs) are viruses that can infect and kill bacteria without any negative effect on human or animal cells. For this reason, it is supposed that they can be used, alone or in combination with antibiotics, to treat bacterial infections. In this narrative review, the advantages and limitations of BPs for use in humans will be discussed.
Why aren’t phages used as a treatment for bacterial infections?
One main reason is because antibiotics have been working well enough over the past 50 years that most countries have not re-initiated a study on the clinical uses of phages. But another reason is that there are some limitations for using phages as a treatment.
What is the history of bacteriophages?
Bacteriophages, called phages for short, were discovered independently by Frederick Twort in 1915 and Félix d’Herelle in 1917, over a decade before penicillin, the most well known antibiotic. In the following years, phages were employed to treat dysentery and cholera with success.
Can phage be used to treat meningitis?
In the USA, the FDA approved ListshieldTM, a food additive containing phages, that kills Listeria monocytogenes, one of the most virulent foodborne pathogens and one cause of meningitis. Currently, many clinical trials using phage to treat or prevent bacterial infections such tuberculosis and MRSA are undergoing.
Why is phage therapy not approved?
Cons of phage therapy include the following: Phages are currently difficult to prepare for use in people and animals. It's not known what dose or amount of phages should be used. It's not known how long phage therapy may take to work.
Why are we not using bacteriophages?
With the exception of treatment options available in a few countries, phages have been largely abandoned as a treatment for bacterial infection. One main reason is because antibiotics have been working well enough over the past 50 years that most countries have not re-initiated a study on the clinical uses of phages.
Can a bacteriophage be used for treatment of human disease?
Phages as bactericidal agents have been employed for 90 years as a means of treating bacterial infections in humans as well as other species, a process known as phage therapy. In this review we explore both the early historical and more modern use of phages to treat human infections.
Why are bacteriophages not infectious to humans?
But we should not worry about bacteriophages because they are harmless to all of us and also to animals and plants. Bacteriophages are only dangerous for bacteria because they need bacteria to reproduce. The reproduction of bacteriophages is quite different from that of animals or plants.
Can bacteriophages infect humans?
Although bacteriophages cannot infect and replicate in human cells, they are an important part of the human microbiome and a critical mediator of genetic exchange between pathogenic and non-pathogenic bacteria [5][6].
Is phage therapy FDA approved?
No form of phage therapy is currently FDA approved, so it can only be used in emergency, experimental, or compassionate use cases. The rise of antibiotic resistance may have one silver lining.
Are bacteriophages present in humans?
Bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria, have re-emerged as powerful regulators of bacterial populations in natural ecosystems. Phages invade the human body, just as they do other natural environments, to such an extent that they are the most numerous group in the human virome.
Why is the use of bacteriophages potentially problematic as an antimicrobial?
The use of temperate phages as therapeutics is problematic due to a combination of display of superinfection immunity,13 which converts phage-sensitive bacteria into insensitive ones, and the encoding of bacterial virulence factors, including bacterial toxins.
Can bacteriophages cause disease?
They found that more than 2000 specific bacteriophages were associated strongly with various human chronic diseases, particularly Parkinson disease and obesity. Many of the viral sequences were integrated into the human chromosomal DNA or in circular episomes.
Do bacteriophage Guests protect human health?
Bacteriophages attack bacteria, and a new study shows that a sea of them may protect the human body.
Can bacteriophages be used to treat bacterial infections?
Introduction. Bacteriophages (BPs) are viruses that can infect and kill bacteria without any negative effect on human or animal cells. For this reason, it is supposed that they can be used, alone or in combination with antibiotics, to treat bacterial infections (Domingo-Calap and Delgado-Martínez, 2018).
Can bacteriophages replace antibiotics?
Phages most likely will never replace antibiotics completely; however, they will be valuable in the treatment of infections caused by multidrug resistant bacteria. Antibiotics will still remain the main treatment for the majority of infections, especially the acute ones, for a long time.
What is a phage?
Bacteriophage therapy as an alternative treatment for human infections. A comprehensive review. Bacteriophages, or phages, are viruses that infect bacteria. They were discovered around a century ago and have been used ever since for therapeutic purposes, particularly in former Soviet Union countries. Their use in Western countries was abandoned ...
When were phages discovered?
Bacteriophages, or phages, are viruses that infect bacteria. They were discovered around a century ago and have been used ever since for therapeutic purposes, particularly in former Soviet Union countries. Their use in Western countries was abandoned after the discovery and broad use of penicillin. The rising problem of antimicrobial resistance has ...
Why are phages abandoned?
With the exception of treatment options available in a few countries, phages have been largely abandoned as a treatment for bacterial infection. One main reason is because antibiotics have been working well enough over the past 50 years that most countries have not re-initiated a study on the clinical uses of phages.
How long does it take for bacteria to resist antibiotics?
Bacteria have been evolving to resist antibiotics faster than ever. Meanwhile, it takes scientists ten or more years to develop a new antibiotic and get FDA approval. Our slow response means that we are losing in this antibiotic arms race. We urgently need an alternative method to fight bacterial infection.
What is the bacteria that is resistant to antibiotics?
Our time with antibiotics is running out. In 2016, a woman in Nevada died from a bacterial infection caused by Klebsiella pneumoniae that was resistant to all available antibiotics. Bacteria that is resistant to colistin, an antibiotic of last resort, has been discovered on pig farms in China. Bacteria have been evolving to resist antibiotics ...
Why are phages used in cholera?
In the following years, phages were employed to treat dysentery and cholera with success. These phages were isolated from the stool of patients who unexpectedly recovered from the illness. Scientists speculated that there was something in these lucky patients that helped to remove harmful bacteria from their guts.
How do scientists produce phages?
To produce phages, first scientists have to grow a large quantity of bacteria that is the natural host of the phage. The bacteria is then infected with the phages, and the phages in turn reproduce and kill all the bacteria. The difficulty begins with the isolation of live phages from a multitude of dead bacteria corpses.
How do viruses get out of the cell?
Viruses need to invade a host cell, consume the host’s nutrients to make more copies of themselves, and lastly get out of the host cell – often by killing the host in the process. In general, phages start their killing first by recognizing and landing on a bacteria. Each type of phages has a specific landing pad.
What was the first drug to be used to treat cholera?
Despite the early success, phages therapy was eclipsed by the discovery of penicillin and the rise of antibiotics. At the time phages were initially used for treatment of cholera, scientists had only just begun to study viruses and speculate about how phages work.
What is the interaction between phages and lysogenic cells?
An interaction of pha ges in vitro through displayed proteins allows bacterial infection by two phages resulting lysogenic cells, which are detected on double drug resistant bacterial colonies at a very low moi of infection under which coincidental double infection is practically zero. We demonstrated interaction of the protein sorting signal ...
What is the purpose of the K1 capsule?
This capsule is believed to increase the cells invasiveness, allowing the bacteria to avoid phagocytosis and inactivation by complement.
What is the use of bacteriophage?
The Use of Bacteriophage in the Prevention, Diagnosis, and Treatment of Human Di.
Does a phage carry a toxin?
We characterized each phage to be of virulent type (non-lysogenizing), does not carry any toxin genes, gives high burst size within a short time (like E. coli phage T7) and have broad host specificity. Specifically, the phages are phiENB6 for VRE, phiK-7 and phiK1-5 for E. coli, phiSP6 and a newly isolated phage phi111 for food borne Salmonella ...