Bacteriophage therapy: potential uses in the control of antibiotic-resistant pathogens

Abstract

The use of bacteriophages (phages) to treat bacterial infections, known as phage therapy, has a history substantially longer than that of antibiotics, yet these drugs have been the treatment of choice in the West for over 60 years owing to efficacy, low toxicity and ease of production. Bacteria are becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotics while efforts to discover new agents have drastically reduced. Phages have co-evolved with their hosts over billions of years and have acquired mechanisms to counter bacterial defences such as extracellular biofilm production, which severely reduces the effectiveness of conventional antibiotics. Recent animal and human trials show phages to be safe, well-tolerated agents with a bright future as an alternative to chemical agents.

Keywords::

• antibiotic resistance
• antimicrobial
• bacteriophage
• biofilms
• human trials
• phage

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the reviewers for their careful reading and helpful comments. We also thank Dan Rhoads for his insights into the Lubbock phage therapy trial. We are grateful to Catherine Easom, AmpliPhi Biosciences Corp for the Confocal micrograph reproduced in Figure 1.

Financial & competing interests disclosure

All authors are paid employees of AmpliPhi Biosciences Corp., Seattle, USA. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.