Phages prevent biofilm formation on catheters under flow

Abstract

Biofilms pose a significant challenge in medical settings, leading to persistent infections. Phage therapy has shown promise in biofilm eradication, but its effectiveness under dynamic flow conditions remains unclear. Here we use two novel Klebsiella phages, Kreuger and Samara, and characterized their genomes, infection cycle, host range and virulence. In this study, we built a simple catheterised bladder model with flow to investigate the impact of phage treatment on biofilm viability in a flow-based catheter model. Our analyses demonstrate that phages Kreuger and Samara are the same species and infect a limited number of strains (3/222), but across three species: Klebsiella aerogenes, Klebsiella pneumoniae and E. coli. Phage treatment significantly reduced E. coli biofilm viability in catheters both in static conditions and under flow, highlighting the potential of phage therapy as an intervention strategy for catheter associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI).

Medical Device-Associated Biofilm Infections and Multidrug-Resistant Pathogens

“…In addition to their specificity and self replication as advantages, they are able to degrade biofilm matrix and prevent resistance development, while the treatment is improved when phages cocktail is used [378,410,468]. Phage therapy has been used to treat wide bacterial infections with little or no side effects constituting a promising technology in clinical application [469]. Until now, several phage-based coating UCs have been developed and tested for uropathogens including E. coli, K. pneumoniae, P. mirabilis, P. aeruginosa, and Staphylococcus spp.…”