Eco-Evolutionary Effects of Bacterial Cooperation on Phage Therapy: An Unknown Risk?

Abstract

If there is something we have learned from the antibiotic era, it is that indiscriminate use of a therapeutic agent without a clear understanding of its long-term evolutionary impact can have enormous health repercussions. This knowledge is particularly relevant when the therapeutic agents are remarkably adaptable and diverse biological entities capable of a plethora of interactions, most of which remain largely unexplored. Although phage therapy (PT) undoubtedly holds the potential to save lives, its current efficacy in case studies recalls the golden era of antibiotics, when these compounds were highly effective and the possibility of them becoming ineffective seemed remote. Safe PT schemes depend on our understanding of how phages interact with, and evolve in, highly complex environments. Here, we summarize and review emerging evidence in a commonly overlooked theme in PT: bacteria-phage interactions. In particular, we discuss the influence of quorum sensing (QS) on phage susceptibility, the consequent role of phages in modulating bacterial cooperation, and the potential implications of this relationship in PT, including how we can use this knowledge to inform PT strategies. We highlight that the influence of QS on phage susceptibility seems to be widespread but can have contrasting outcomes depending on the bacterial host, underscoring the need to thoroughly characterize this link in various bacterial models. Furthermore, we encourage researchers to exploit competition experiments, experimental evolution, and mathematical modeling to explore this relationship further in relevant infection models. Finally, we emphasize that long-term PT success requires research on phage ecology and evolution to inform the design of optimal therapeutic schemes.

Keywords: anti-phage defense; bacteria-phage interactions; cheaters; phage therapy; phages; quorum sensing.