Ulrich, Laura , Steiner, Leon X. , Giez, Christoph, Lachnit, Tim and Imperiale, Michael J. (2024) Optimizing bacteriophage treatment of resistant Pseudomonas. mSphere, 9 (7). Art.Nr. e0070723. DOI 10.1128/msphere.00707-23.

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Abstract

Phage therapy is increasing in relevance as an alternative treatment to combat antibiotic resistant bacteria. Phage cocktails are the state-of-the-art method of administering phages in clinical settings, preferred over monophage treatment because of their ability to eliminate multiple bacterial strains and reduce resistance formation. In our study, we compare monophage applications and phage cocktails to our chosen method of phage sequential treatments. To do so, we isolated four novel bacteriophages capable of infecting Pseudomonas alcaligenes T3, a close relative of P. aeruginosa, and characterized them using sequencing and transmission electron microscopy. While investigating monophage treatments, we observed that different phage concentrations had a strong impact on the timing and amount of resistance formation. When using phage cocktails, we observed that P. alcaligenes were capable of forming resistance in the same timespan it took them to become resistant to single phages. We isolated mutants resistant to each single phage as well as mutants exposed to phage cocktails, resulting in bacteria resistant to all four phages at once. Sequencing these mutants showed that different treatments yielded unique single nucleotide polymorphism mutation patterns. In order to combat resistance formation, we added phages one by one in intervals of 24 h, thus managing to delay resistance development and keeping bacterial growth significantly lower compared to phage cocktails. IMPORTANCE WHO declared antimicrobial resistance a top threat to global health; while antibiotics have stood at the forefront in the fight against bacterial infection, the increasing number of multidrug-resistant bacteria highlights a need to branch out in order to address the threat of antimicrobial resistance. Bacteriophages, viruses solely infecting bacteria, could present a solution due to their abundance, versatility, and adaptability. For this study, we isolated new phages infecting a fast-mutating Pseudomonas alcaligenes strain capable of forming resistance within 30 h. By using a sequential treatment approach of adding one phage after another, we were able to curb bacterial growth significantly more compared to state-of-the-art phage cocktails.

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