Bacteriophages and phage-derived products as antibacterial therapeutics

Abstract

There is presently a growing concern surrounding antibiotic-resistant bacteria in both the scientific community and the general public. The use of bacteriophages for the treatment of bacterial infections, a technique long employed in Eastern Europe with reportedly high success, has been a topic of growing research interest in the West over the past two decades. While the use of intact phages for such treatments in the classic sense of phage therapy remains a popular research topic, recent advances in molecular biology have also allowed for the development of novel phage-derived antimicrobial agents, such as lysins and non-replicative phage-based lethal agents. Much of the research and development of these technologies has been conducted on a small scale, resulting in numerous peer-reviewed publications and patents, but very few commercially available products to date. While the data available on many of these phage-based antimicrobials appears promising on a laboratory or pilot scale, their true efficacy will be explicitly realized once these technologies enter into broad clinical or commercial availability.

Keywords::

• antibiotic-resistant bacteria
• bacteriophages
• lysin
• phage therapy

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank J Martin of the Canadian Agriculture Library for assistance with the initial patent searches. This work was supported in part by AAFC project 169-2007.