To date, the potential of bacteriophages that destroy mycobacteria in combating tuberculosis has been demonstrated\u2014namely in diagnosing the disease, preventing infections, and treatment. However, phage therapy for tuberculosis remains a challenging task due to the specific features of the infectious process, primarily because the causative agents of tuberculosis\u2014mycobacteria\u2014live in macrophages and granulomas, i.e., are inaccessible or poorly accessible to bacteriophages. At the same time, in the late stages of the disease, a significant number of mycobacteria may exist outside cells and, accordingly, be available for phage treatment, as has been demonstrated for Mycobacterium abscessus infection. <\/p>\n
A potential advantage of phage control of tuberculosis infection is the relatively low variability of clinical strains with regard to phage susceptibility. This means that some phages can infect a wide range of M. tuberculosis strains. The use of bacteriophages may help shorten the course of antibiotic therapy, become a new tool in the treatment of multidrug-resistant (MDR) tuberculosis and extensively drug-resistant (XDR) tuberculosis, and protect new antibiotics from the rapid development of resistance. <\/p>\n
Scientists at the University of Pittsburgh (USA) created a phage cocktail of five mycobacteriophages with broad specificity for M. tuberculosis* strains. The properties of the bacteriophages in the cocktail were further optimized using genetic and bioengineering approaches. In particular, lysogenic phages were converted into lytic ones (by removing the repressor gene), the range of phage specificity was expanded, and the risk of phage-resistance development in bacteria was minimized. <\/p>\n
The cocktail effectively eliminated all tested M. tuberculosis strains, with the exception of L6, which is not widespread and occurs only in a limited area. Some other regional strains of the tuberculosis pathogen were not used in the testing. <\/p>\n
The incidence of bacterial resistance to the phage cocktail was low. In addition, the cocktail effectively destroyed M. tuberculosis when used in combination with antibiotics; in particular, bacteriophages showed activity against antibiotic-resistant bacteria. <\/p>\n
Phage therapy has repeatedly demonstrated a high level of safety for humans; therefore, in the authors\u2019 view, it is advisable to conduct clinical trials to determine the scope of application of mycobacteriophage cocktails\u2014across a broad patient population or only in specific situations.<\/p>\n
Source:
\n* Guerrero-Bustamante CA, Dedrick RM, Garlena RA, Russell DA, Hatfull GF. Toward a phage cocktail for tuberculosis: susceptibility and tuberculocidal activity of mycobacteriophages against various Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains. mBio, 2021; 12: e00973-21. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1128\/mBio.00973-21… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
To date, the potential of bacteriophages that destroy mycobacteria in combating tuberculosis has been demonstrated\u2014namely in diagnosing the disease, preventing infections, and treatment. However, phage therapy for tuberculosis remains a challenging task due to the specific features of the infectious process, primarily because the causative agents of tuberculosis\u2014mycobacteria\u2014live in macrophages and granulomas, i.e., are inaccessible […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8667,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[253],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bacteriophages"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.phage.help\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/doctor-6235356_960_720.jpg?fit=440%2C720&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pazElU-2fL","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phage.help\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phage.help\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phage.help\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phage.help\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phage.help\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.phage.help\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8665\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phage.help\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phage.help\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phage.help\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phage.help\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}