Viruses, Vol. 13, Pages 89: Characterization of Yersinia pestis Phage Lytic Activity in Human Whole Blood for the Selection of Efficient Therapeutic Phages

Viruses, Vol. 13, Pages 89: Characterization of Yersinia pestis Phage Lytic Activity in Human Whole Blood for the Selection of Efficient Therapeutic Phages Viruses doi: 10.3390/v13010089 Authors: Sarit Moses Yaron Vagima Avital Tidhar Moshe Aftalion Emanuelle Mamroud Shahar Rotem Ida Steinberger-Levy The global increase in multidrug-resistant (MDR) pathogenic bacteria has led to growing interest in bacteriophage (“phage”) therapy. Therapeutic phages are usually selected based on their ability to infect and lyse target bacteria, using in vitro assays. In these assays, phage infection is determined using target bacteria grown in standard commercial rich media, while evaluation of the actual therapeutic activity requires the presence of human blood. In the present work, we characterized the ability of two different Yersinia pestis lytic phages (ϕA1122 and PST) to infect and kill a luminescent Y. pestis EV76 strain suspended in Brain Heart Infusion (BHI)-rich medium or in human whole blood, simulating the host environment. We found that the ability of the phages to infect and lyse blood-suspended Y. pestis was not correlated with their ability to infect and lyse BHI-suspended bacteria. While the two different phages exhibited efficient infective capacity in a BHI-suspended culture, only the PST phage showed efficient lysis ability against blood-suspended bacteria. Therefore, we recommend that for personalized phage therapy, selecti...
Source: Viruses - Category: Virology Authors: Tags: Article Source Type: research