Characterization of Bacteriophages Against Pseudomonas aeruginosa for Therapeutic Uses

KATE WENDELSDORF, NAOMI HOYLE, SUSANNE DISALVO, GAUTAM DUTTA, RAUL RAYA, LIANA GACHECHILADZE, ELIZABETH KUTTER

New Orleans, USA

Congreso; 2004 General Meeting American Society for Microbiology; 2004

American Society for Microbiology, USA

The rise of antibiotic resistance has created a need for an alternative treatment for serious bacterial infections. Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an opportunistic pathogen, inherently antibiotic resistant, that is the leading cause of death in patients with Cystic Fibrosis and of sometimes-fatal complications in burn and wound patients. The use of therapeutic phages for bacterial infections has a long history of effectiveness. Phages have been used as antibiotics in the Republic of Georgia for a wide range of applications, but none of the phages have been characterized in detail at the molecular level. Such characterization is crucial if that technology is to be exported to the rest of the world to help deal with the serious antibiotic crisis. A CRDF grant jointly awarded to scientists at the Eliava Institute in Tbilisi and at the Evergreen State College is now helping make such characterization possible for some of the most virulent phages selected for potential use in a therapeutic cocktail. They are being characterized in terms of molecular analysis, host range and infection kinetics. For example, we are currently studying an interesting-looking podovirus, PEV1, isolated in Olympia, that shows close sequence homologies only to P. aeruginosa phage PaP3, recently isolated and sequenced in China. Another under study is a giant myovirus that appears to be closely related to PhiKZ, from the Russian collection of Victor Krylov. Primers are currently being designed to screen other phages in the collections by PCR.