Benefits of Bacteriophages to Combat Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria

Dear Colleagues,

Bacteriophages are important players in microbial communities, modulating bacterial growth and evolution. They also contribute to pathogenicity by providing virulence factors and antibiotic resistance genes, which can be further spread in the bacterial population. Indeed, phages might be vehicles for horizontal exchange of genetic material by transduction, in some cases resulting in bacteria with increased resistance to therapeutic drugs. Recently, in Western countries, bacteriophages have been proposed as an attractive alternative to antibiotics (phage therapy) for the treatment of bacterial infections. However, the risk that a massive use of bacteriophages may contribute to the development of antibiotic resistance through the transmission of genetic material is an as of yet unsolved problem. Moreover, although the real contribution of therapeutic phages to the diffusion of resistance has not been precisely defined, it seems clear that phages are important reservoirs of resistance genes. Despite these drawbacks, progress in new technologies, such as genome editing and synthetic biology, offers a wide variety of possibilities to generate phages with adequate properties for prophylactic and therapeutic applications. Some examples of strategies to improve phages intended for phage therapy include deletion of undesirable genes, expanding phage host range or disrupting some capsid epitopes to eliminate immune responses. Our possibilities can go even further by using phages that deliver CRISPR-Cas systems and sensitize bacteria to antibiotics, thereby facilitating the replacement of antibiotic-resistant pathogens with their sensitive counterparts. The main subject of this Special Issue includes any bacteriophage-based approach to prevent or control antibiotic resistant bacteria, especially human pathogenic bacteria. The issue welcomes various submission types, such as original research papers, short communications, reviews, case reports, and perspectives. Potential topics include phage therapy (human and veterinary medicine), prophylactic applications of phages (development of vaccine platforms), and the use of phage genome engineering or CRISPR-Cas-based phage engineering to obtain phages suitable for reducing antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Dr. Pilar García Suárez
Guest Editor

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