Facing Antibiotic Resistance: Staphylococcus aureus Phages as a Medical Tool

Abstract

Staphylococcus aureus is a common and often virulent pathogen in humans. This bacterium is widespread, being present on the skin and in the nose of healthy people. Staphylococcus aureus can cause infections with severe outcomes ranging from pustules to sepsis and death. The introduction of antibiotics led to a general belief that the problem of bacterial infections would be solved. Nonetheless, pathogens including staphylococci have evolved mechanisms of drug resistance. Among current attempts to address this problem, phage therapy offers a promising alternative to combat staphylococcal infections. Here, we present an overview of current knowledge on staphylococcal infections and bacteriophages able to kill Staphylococcus, including experimental studies and available data on their clinical use.

Hayvansal Gıdalardan İzole Edilen Staphylococcus aureus’ların Antibiyotik Dirençlilik Gen Profilleri

“…Tetracycline GTA GCG ACA ATA GGT AAT AGT 360 55ºC [17] tetK-2 GTA GTG ACA ATA AAC CTC CTA [5,21] . Food is an important vehicle for the transfer of resistant S. aureus strains from animals to humans and antimicrobial resistant strains are emerging as a global problem.…”

“…Hitherto, numbers of publication have been reported concerning the resistance of S. aureus isolates to diverse spectrum of antibiotics [3,4] . S. aureus is causing a concern due to its ability to become resistant to antibiotics via acquired by horizontal transfer of genes and chromosomal mutation [5] . Moreover, enzymatic drug modifications, changes in the target sites and membrane bound efflux pumps are additional mechanisms for the bacteria to combat against antimicrobial agents [6] .…”

Synergistic antimicrobial activity of bacteriophages and antibiotics against Staphylococcus aureus

“…Interest in bacteriophages (phages) has been renewed for controlling pathogenic bacteria because of their host-specific characteristics with no detrimental effects on human cells (7)(8)(9)(10). Recently, phages have received much attention as a possible alternative to antibiotics in the treatment of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections (11,12).…”

Re-establishing a place for Phage Therapy in Western Medicine

“…Unlike smallmolecule antibiotics, these natural and ubiquitous antibacterials offer clinical advantages [1,4], as well as challenges [5], in that they very precisely target specific bacteria and nothing else [6,7]. Longstanding medical use of phages supports their usefulness [6,8,9] and no reasonable amount of Phase I clinical trials could demonstrate the safety of phage therapy beyond what we can already infer from the large number of people who have been treated using phages in France and Eastern Europe without serious consequence [6,7,10,11] [12]. Phages are also able to disrupt biofilms [13] as well as self-replicate in conjunction with their antibacterial activity.…”

“…It is a ubiquitous inhabitant of our skin, yet also a major component in many wound infections, postsurgical complications, pressure ulcers, diabetic ulcers, pneumonias and competitive sports injuries, among others, and is increasingly multidrug resistant [8]. S. aureus surface properties are sufficiently homogeneous that, in contrast to phages targeting Gram-negative pathogens, most purely lytic Staphylococcus phages are active against most species members, including MRSA [8,19]. Staphylococcus phages also have been widely used in French, Belgian, US, Russian and Georgian phage formulations [6,7] ("Georgian" refers to the former Soviet Republic and now the country of Georgia).…”