Experimental Phage Therapy for Burkholderia pseudomallei Infection

PLoS One. 2016 Jul 7;11(7):e0158213. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0158213. eCollection 2016.

Abstract

Burkholderia pseudomallei is an intracellular Gram-negative bacterial pathogen intrinsically resistant to a variety of antibiotics. Phages have been developed for use as an alternative treatment therapy, particularly for bacterial infections that do not respond to conventional antibiotics. In this study, we investigated the use of phages to treat cells infected with B. pseudomallei. Phage C34 isolated from seawater was purified and characterised on the basis of its host range and morphology using transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Phage C34 was able to lyse 39.5% of B. pseudomallei clinical strains. Due to the presence of contractile tail, phage C34 is classified as a member of the family Myoviridae, a tailed double-stranded DNA virus. When 2 × 105 A549 cells were exposed to 2 × 107 PFU of phage C34, 24 hours prior to infection with 2 × 106 CFU of B. pseudomallei, it was found that the survivability of the cells increased to 41.6 ± 6.8% as compared to 22.8 ± 6.0% in untreated control. Additionally, application of phage successfully rescued 33.3% of mice infected with B. pseudomallei and significantly reduced the bacterial load in the spleen of the phage-treated mice. These findings indicate that phage can be a potential antimicrobial agent for B. pseudomallei infections.

MeSH terms

  • A549 Cells
  • Animals
  • Anti-Infective Agents / therapeutic use
  • Bacterial Load
  • Burkholderia pseudomallei*
  • Colony Count, Microbial
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Liver / microbiology
  • Lung / microbiology
  • Melioidosis / therapy*
  • Mice
  • Mice, Inbred BALB C
  • Phage Therapy / methods*
  • Seawater / virology
  • Spleen / microbiology

Substances

  • Anti-Infective Agents

Grants and funding

Research in the authors’ laboratory was supported by Ministry of Education (MOE), Malaysia under the High Impact Research (HIR)-MOE, project UM.C/625/1/HIR/MoE/CHAN/13/5 (H-50001-00-A000033), University of Malaya Research Grant (UMRG) (RP013C-13HTM) and University of Malaya Postgraduate Research Fund (PV066/2011A). Funding was awarded to JV. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.