Day by day bacteria are turning antibiotic resistant. So, the alternative that people came up with is using bacteriophages to kill specific bacteria that are causing trouble to us. How successful is this?
It is a known fact that day by day, more and more number of bacterial strains are turning antibiotic resistance , and the use of bacteriophage is a theoretical approach on which people are working . But the problem with the use of bacteriophages is that
1.) Not all bacteriophages kill their hosts , hence the bacteria may survive,
2.) What if the phages carry a part of gene that codes for another disease and this infects human cells rather than virulent strain ?
3.) Even ethics come into picture . Even if the process goes well,Are people ready to inject themselves with another microbial strain ?
The phage research is ongoing now for decades, but as far as I know, with no big success. I am not an expert in that field, but I would recommend to focuss more on inhibiting/blocking immune evasion machanism. This would enable our immune system to win the fight against pathogens more often and easier. But as all the other strategies, it is a long way to go, if possible at all.
Use of bacteriophage as therapeutic agent has tremendous scope, only if phage strain is
i. Lytic in nature
ii. low endotoxin level (>5EU)
iii. Low phage induced toxicity
iv. long circulation time in blood
Putting lights on some more issues,
Phage can never carry a gene that codes for human disease, they are very specific.
Microbes are prokrayote and their phage can not infect eukaryote systems.
Regulatory authorities already declared lytic bacteriophage as theraputic agent. Ethics?? people don't even know they get phages in drinking water.
Concerns
1. Route of phage administration plays a crucial role in therapy.
2. Being phage a foreign partical body will induce a immune responce, so therapy has to include immunosuppresion prior to the treatment.
3. Single phage against single bacteria rarely works in vivo, so go for phage cocktail
4. phage characterization is most difficult task in india.
bacteriophage encoded enzymes could prove to be more effective and safe than using entire bacteriophages.
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