The application of bacteriophages to treat bacterial infections has been around for almost a century, particularly in Former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. However, the successful intervention of modern antibiotic therapy overshadowed the global applications of phage therapy. Today, health care is facing a major threat from multidrug-resistant pathogens, phage therapy is garnering a well-deserved rebirth. In consequence, for the first time, the US clinical trial of intravenously administered bacteriophage therapy received FDA approval to evaluate the safety and efficacy of an experimental bacteriophage therapy for patients with ventricular assist devices (VAD) associated Staphylococcus aureus infections. FDA & USDA also approved the PhageGuard-E, PhageGuard-S & PhageGuard Listex (the natural phages against E. coli O157, Salmonella and Listeria monocytogenes respectively) as a GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) for dairy and food processing products.

Dear Majid

as Sungagar wrote the use of bacteriophages to treat bacterial infections has been around for almost a century.

To my knwoledge the 2 problems that mainly limit their effective application are:

- low specificity. It may target not only the specific pathogen that you would like to eradicate but also good commensal bacterial.

- Reduction of their efficacy with repeated treatment due to the the fact that bacteriophages and their products are non-self-antigens, and it is not surprising that they can be recognized by the immune system and induce responses that can theoretically reduce the benefit of BP administration.

you can find a quite recent review about in on

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphar.2019.00513/full

Ciao

Manuele

With respect to Majid's second point, the non-specificity of bacteriophages and the chances of killing of commensal flora are very less. As phages are known for their narrow host range and specificity.

I do agree that development of phage neutralizing antibody in host and ncapability to kill intracellular pathogens are the major drawbacks of bacteriophages. However, phage lytic enzymes (endolysins, depolymerases) that are spontaneous and fast-acting, destroys metabolically active and persistent bacterial cells in minutes. For intracellular pathogens one can use the filamentous phages.

Thanks a lot Dr. Sunagar Raju.

Bacteriophages are very effective in lysis of specific infectious bacterial pathogen owing to high specificity in their action. They have been proved very safe in therapeutic use and are rapidly adaptable to combat with multi-drug resistant bacteria. Please go through the following references for more details.

Article Efficacy of bacteriophage treatment against carbapenem-resis...

Article Bacteriophages as Adjuvant to Antibiotics for the Treatment ...

Article Bacteriophages: A Therapy Concept against Multi-Drug–Resista...

Article Bacteriophage therapy: Potential uses in the control of anti...