Chapter 15 - The Potential Use of Bacteriophage Therapy as a Treatment Option in a Post-Antibiotic Era

Abstract

The impending postantibiotic era creates an urgent requirement for alternative treatments of infectious diseases in humans and animals. Bacteriophages are viruses that infect and kill bacteria. The application of bacteriophages as a treatment option was investigated before the development of antibiotics. However, the initial success of antibiotic therapy soon shifted the focus from bacteriophage research. The revitalization of phage therapy has received increased global attention since the appearance of multidrug-resistant bacteria. Bacteriophages replicate via either the lytic or lysogenic cycle. While both life cycles have potential applications in bacteriophage therapy, the lytic cycle seems most suited to antibacterial therapy. The most striking advantage of bacteriophage therapy is the high degree of host specificity exhibited by these viruses, which enables the formulation of tailored treatments that kill only pathogenic bacteria. However, the high specificity of such treatments requires highly accurate diagnostic procedures in order to succeed. Other restrictions of bacteriophage therapy, such as limitations with the registration of phage therapy options, may possibly be overcome by the expression and engineering of phage lytic enzymes, which break the bacterial cell wall. The problem of bacterial immunity to phage infection also cannot be ignored, although it is more solvable than resistance to antibiotics. Considering the available information, phage therapy holds promise as an alternative treatment option, although the road ahead is not without obstacles.