Antibiotics Unite With Bacteria-killing Viruses to Fight Against Antibiotic-resistance

New therapies that combine bacteria that are vulnerable to viruses, called bacteriophages with the antibiotics that we currently use, to treat antibiotic-resistant infections are developed.

Researchers from Université de Montpellier and the University of Pittsburgh described the antibacterial effects of new combination therapy for treating infections caused by the antibiotic-resistant bacteria M. abscessus in the journal Disease Models & Mechanisms.

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‘Bacteriophage combined with antibiotic therapy promotes enhanced clearance of drug-resistant Mycobacterium abscessus.’

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Mycobacterium abscessus a relative of the bacteria that cause tuberculosis and leprosy, is responsible for severe damage to human lungs, and can be resistant to many standard antibiotics, making infections extremely challenging to treat.

In previous studies, researchers have identified that one bacteriophage out of 10,000, known as ‘Muddy’ can efficiently kill bacteria in a petri dish and could be a candidate for treating these infections in humans. However, they wanted to find an alternative method to test their new therapy in patients.

Knowing that human cystic fibrosis patients are particularly vulnerable to M. abscessus infections, researchers decided to test their new combination therapy on zebrafish carrying the key genetic mutation that causes cystic fibrosis in humans.

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Then they obtained samples of an antibiotic-resistant form of M. abscessus from a cystic fibrosis patient to infect the cystic fibrosis zebrafish for testing their new treatment.

Monitoring the animals for 12 days, they found that the fish developed serious infections with abscesses and suffered a high death rate; only 20% survived.

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Next, they tested how well the infected fish recovered when injected with Muddy, the antibacterial bacteriophage, over 5 days. This time, the fish had much less severe infections, increased chances of survival (40%).

Then researchers paired antibiotic rifabutin that could treat M. abscessus infection with the bacteriophage alone. With this combination treatment, the fishes’ infections were much less severe; the fishes’ survival rate rocketed to 70% and they had fewer abscesses.

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Having shown that it is possible to treat an antibiotic-resistant infection in vulnerable zebrafish with specially targeted bacteriophages, researchers hope this treatment can eventually be transferred to the clinic to save human lives.

Source-Medindia