Antibiotic resistance is becoming the biggest threat to global health. At the same time, phage therapy is witnessing a return of interest. The therapeutic use of bacteriophages that infect and kill bacteria is a suitable strategy to combat antibiotic resistance. Furthermore, bacteriophages are increasingly used in combination with standard antibiotics against drug-resistant pathogens. Interestingly, we found that the engineered mycobacteriophage phAE159 and natural phage D29 cannot infect the Mycobacterium tuberculosis in the presence of kanamycin, hygromycin or streptomycin, but the phage infection was not affected in the presence of spectinomycin. Based on a series of studies and structural analysis of the above four aminoglycoside antibiotics, it could be speculated that the amino sugar group of aminoglycoside might selectively inhibit mycobacteriophage DNA replication. Our discovery that broad-spectrum antibiotics inhibit phage infection is of great value. This study will provide guidance for people to combine phage and antibiotics to treat M. tuberculosis.
Keywords: aminoglycosides; antibiotic resistance; mycobacteriophage; phage therapy; tuberculosis.