Abstract
The application of bacteriophages for the elimination of pathogenic bacteria has received significantly increased attention world-wide in the past decade. This is borne out by the increasing prevalence of bacteriophage-specific conferences highlighting significant and diverse advances in the exploitation of bacteriophages. While bacteriophage therapy has been associated with the Former Soviet Union historically, since the 1990s, it has been widely and enthusiastically adopted as a research topic in Western countries. This has been justified by the increasing prevalence of antibiotic resistance in many prominent human pathogenic bacteria. Discussion of the therapeutic aspects of bacteriophages in this review will include the uses of whole phages as antibacterials and will also describe studies on the applications of purified phage-derived peptidoglycan hydrolases, which do not have the constraint of limited bacterial host-range often observed with whole phages.
Highlights
Bacteriophage HistoryBacteriophages (phages) were first characterised about 100 years ago by [1–3]. Earlier authors, such as Ernest Hankin [4], Nikolay Gamaleya [5], and Frederick Twort [6], are understood to have observed the antibacterial activity of phages without being able to recognise or identify the agents responsible
The application of bacteriophages for the elimination of pathogenic bacteria has received significantly increased attention worldwide in the past decade
Discussion of the therapeutic aspects of bacteriophages in this review will include the uses of whole phages as antibacterials and will describe studies on the applications of purified phage-derived peptidoglycan hydrolases, which do not have the constraint of limited bacterial host-range often observed with whole phages
Summary
Bacteriophages (phages) were first characterised about 100 years ago by [1–3]. Earlier authors, such as Ernest Hankin [4], Nikolay Gamaleya [5], and Frederick Twort [6], are understood to have observed the antibacterial activity of phages without being able to recognise or identify the agents responsible. Most recognition for the development of phage therapy goes to Felix d’Herelle who isolated these agents from the stool samples of dysentery patients, named them bacteriophages, and developed the phage assays which remain in use up to the present [7, 8]. He initiated the first phage therapy experiments in the early 1920s. The use of phages to treat bacterial infections has recently gained attention in Western medicine mainly due to ever-increasing incidence of bacterial resistance to antibiotics and due to the fact that phage biology, phage-bacteria interaction, and the basis for bacterial infections are vastly better understood than was the case in the mid-twentieth century when phage therapy was eclipsed by antibiotic treatments [7]
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