title: On-Demand Isolation of Bacteriophages Against Drug-Resistant Bacteria for Personalized Phage Therapy.
abstract: Bacteriophages are bacterial viruses, capable of killing even multi-drug resistant bacterial cells. For this reason, therapeutic use of phages is considered as a possible alternative to conventional antibiotics. However, phages are very host specific in comparison to wide-spectrum antibiotics and thus preparation of phage-cocktails beforehand against pathogens can be difficult. In this study, we evaluate whether it may be possible to isolate phages on-demand from environmental reservoir. We attempted to enrich infectious bacteriophages from sewage against nosocomial drug-resistant bacterial strains of different medically important species in order to evaluate the probability of discovering novel therapeutic phages. Stability and host-range were determined for the acquired phages. Our results suggest that on-demand isolation of phages is possible against Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Salmonella and extended spectrum beta-lactamase Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae. The probability of finding suitable phages was less than 40% against vancomycin resistant Enterococcus and Acinetobacter baumannii strains. Furthermore, isolation of new phages against methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus strains was found to be very difficult.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological and Environmental Science, Centre of Excellence in Biological Interactions, University of Jyväskylä Jyväskylä Finland.
authors.forename: Sari
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mattila
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological and Environmental Science, Centre of Excellence in Biological Interactions, University of Jyväskylä Jyväskylä Finland.
authors.forename: Pilvi
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Ruotsalainen
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological and Environmental Science, Centre of Excellence in Biological Interactions, University of Jyväskylä Jyväskylä Finland.
authors.forename: Matti
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Jalasvuori
keywords: ESBL; MRSA; antibiotic resistance; bacteriophages; phage cocktails; phage therapy