Phage therapy for Clostridioides difficile infection

Kosuke Fujimoto; Satoshi Uematsu

doi:10.3389/fimmu.2022.1057892

Phage therapy for Clostridioides difficile infection

Front Immunol. 2022 Oct 28:13:1057892. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2022.1057892. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Kosuke Fujimoto^{1

2}, Satoshi Uematsu^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Immunology and Genomics, Osaka Metropolitan University Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka, Japan.
² Division of Metagenome Medicine, Human Genome Center, The Institute of Medical Science, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.

Abstract

Clostridioides difficile is endemic in the intestinal tract of healthy people. However, it is responsible for many healthcare-associated infections, such as nosocomial diarrhea following antibiotic treatment. Importantly, there have been cases of unsuccessful treatment and relapse related to the emergence of highly virulent strains of C. difficile and resistance to antimicrobial agents. Fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) is considered an effective therapy for recurrent C. difficile infection. However, its safety is of concern because deaths caused by antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections after FMT were reported. Therefore, the development of effective C. difficile-specific treatments is urgently needed. In this review, we summarize the importance of phage therapy against C. difficile, and describe a novel next-generation phage therapy developed using metagenomic data.

Keywords: Clostridioides difficile; bacteriophage; cell wall-binding domain; endolysin; enzyme active domain; metagenome.

Publication types

Review
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Clostridioides difficile*
Clostridium Infections* / microbiology
Clostridium Infections* / therapy
Diarrhea / therapy
Fecal Microbiota Transplantation
Humans
Phage Therapy*