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Targeting MDR Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilm with an evolutionary trained bacteriophage cocktail exploiting phage resistance trade-offs
Open accessPreprint — published as 10.1038/s41467-024-52595-w · Paper page
Abstract
Spread of multidrug-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa strains threatens to render currently available antibiotics obsolete, with limited prospects for the development of new antibiotics. Lytic bacteriophages (phages), the natural predators of bacteria, represent a path to combat this threat. In vitro directed evolution is traditionally applied to expand the phage host range or increase bacterial suppression in planktonic cultures. However, while 80% of human microbial infections are biofilm-associated, research towards targeted improvement of phages’ ability to combat biofilms remains scarce. Here, we describe an in vitro evolution assay that improves multiple phage parameters in parallel, while optimizing phage cocktail design by exploiting a bacterial phage resistance trade-off. The obtained evolved phages show an expanded host spectrum, improved antimicrobial efficacy under isothermal microcalorimetric monitoring and enhanced antibiofilm performance, as determined by RT-qPCR. Our two-phage cocktail revealed further improved antimicrobial efficacy without incurring dual-phage-resistance in treated bacteria. We anticipate this assay will allow a better understanding of phenotypic-genomic relationships in phages and enable the training of phages against other desired pathogens. This, in turn, will strengthen phage therapy as a treatment adjunct to improve clinical outcomes of multidrug-resistant bacterial infections.
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Cites
Highly accurate protein structure prediction with AlphaFold
Jumper, J., Evans, R., Pritzel, A., Green, T., Figurnov, M., Ronneberger, O., Tunyasuvunakool, K., Bates, R., Žídek, A., Potapenko, A., et al. (2021) · Nature · doi:10.1038/s41586-021-03819-2 · Cited by 43,764
Metadata
- Authors
- Kunisch, F., Wagemans, J., Yildirim, S., Chan, B., Schaudinn, C., Lavigne, R., Turner, P., Raschke, M., Trampuz, A., & Moreno, M. G.
- Affiliations
- University of Münster (DE)
- KU Leuven (BE)
- Berlin Institute of Health at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin
- Yale University (US)
- Robert Koch Institute (DE)
- Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster
- Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin
- Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (DE)
- ORCID
- Venue
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2023-06-19
- Volume
- 15
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 8572-8572
- ISSN
- 2041-1723 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC11450229
- OpenAlex
- W4403098193
- Cited by
- 102
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 61 · 2025: 39 · 2024: 2
- FWCI
- 27.92
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Nature Communications (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Research Square (acceptedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Publication server of the Robert Koch Institute (Robert Kock Institute) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Lirias (KU Leuven) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- Yale University
- Sonnenfeld Stiftung
- Joint Programming Initiative on Antimicrobial Resistance
- Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (01KI1823)
- KU Leuven (IDN/20/024)
- Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes
- Università di Pisa
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Immunology and Microbiology › Virology › Bacteriophages and microbial interactions
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Bacterial biofilms and quorum sensing
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Evolution and Genetic Dynamics
- Keywords
- Pseudomonas aeruginosa, biofilm, phage therapy, multidrug resistance, host range expansion, antibiofilm activity, isothermal microcalorimetry, real-time PCR
- MeSH terms
- Phage Therapy, Anti-Bacterial Agents, Bacteriophages, Humans, Microbial Sensitivity Tests, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Pseudomonas Infections, Pseudomonas Phages, Biofilms, Drug Resistance, Multiple, Bacterial, Host Specificity
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