Design of a broad-range bacteriophage cocktail that reduces Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilms and treats acute infections in two animal models.

Design of a broad-range bacteriophage cocktail that reduces Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilms and treats acute infections in two animal models. Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 2018 Mar 19;: Authors: Forti F, Roach DR, Cafora M, Pasini ME, Horner DS, Fiscarelli EV, Rossitto M, Cariani L, Briani F, Debarbieux L, Ghisotti D Abstract The alarming diffusion of multidrug resistant (MDR) bacterial strains requires investigations on non-antibiotic therapies. Amongst them, the use of bacteriophages (phages) as antimicrobial agents, namely phage therapy, is a promising treatment strategy with support by recent successful compassionate treatments in Europe and the U.S.A. In this work, we combined host range and genomic information to design a 6-phage cocktail killing several clinical strains of P. aeruginosa, including those collected from Italian cystic fibrosis (CF) patients, and analyzed the cocktail performance. We demonstrated that the cocktail composed of four novel (PYO2, DEV, E215 and E217) and two previously characterized (PAK_P1 and PAK_P4) phages was able to lyse P. aeruginosa both in planktonic liquid cultures and in biofilm. In addition, we showed that the phage cocktail could cure acute respiratory infection in mouse and treat bacteremia in the wax moth Galleria mellonella larvae. Furthermore, administration of the cocktail to larvae prior to bacterial infection provided prophylaxis. In this regard, efficiency of the phage cocktail was...
Source: Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy - Category: Microbiology Authors: Tags: Antimicrob Agents Chemother Source Type: research