Abstract
Acinetobacter baumannii is a gram-negative, non-motile bacterium that, due to its multidrug resistance, has become a major nosocomial pathogen. The increasing number of multidrug resistant (MDR) strains has renewed interest in phage therapy. The aim of our study was to assess the effectiveness of phage administration in Acinetobacter baumannii wound infections in an animal model to demonstrate phage therapy as non-toxic, safe and alternative antibacterial remedy. Using classical methods for the study of bacteriophage properties, we characterized phage vB-GEC_Ab-M-G7 as a dsDNA myovirus with a 90 kb genome size. Important characteristics of vB-GEC_Ab-M-G7include a short latent period and large burst size, wide host range, resistance to chloroform and thermal and pH stability. In a rat wound model, phage application effectively decreased the number of bacteria isolated from the wounds of successfully treated animals. This study highlights the effectiveness of the phage therapy and provides further insight into treating infections caused by MDR strains using phage administration.
Highlights
Acinetobacter baumannii is a gram-negative, non-motile bacterium that has become a major nosocomial pathogen due to its multidrug resistance
Due to the increase in the number of antibiotic resistant microbes, phage therapy is considered as alternative treatment for multidrug resistant (MDR) bacterial infections (Chibani-Chennoufi et al, 2004; Sulakvelidze, 2005; Debarbieux et al, 2010; Kutter et al, 2010)
Phage preparations are widely used to treat infections caused by E. coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Salmonella spp., Enterococcus faecium, Streptococcus spp., Staphylococcus aureus and Proteus spp. in countries of the former Soviet Union (Matsuzaki et al, 2005; Sulakvelidze, 2005), but A. baumannii phages have not yet been used as therapeutic tools
Summary
Acinetobacter baumannii is a gram-negative, non-motile bacterium that has become a major nosocomial pathogen due to its multidrug resistance. Most of the strains are still sensitive in vitro to colistin, an antibiotic which was considered toxic for a long time (Montero et al, 2004). Recent studies suggest it can be used as an efficient antimicrobial agent (Michalopoulos and Falagas, 2011). Colistin resistant A. baumannii strains have already been reported (Lopez-Rojas et al, 2011; Kempf and Rolain, 2012; Gupta et al, 2016; Yilmaz et al, 2016). The risk of A. baumannii nosocomial infection is increasing
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