Bacteriophages: what role may they play in life after spinal cord injury?

Abstract

Bacterial infections are the leading cause of death in people with a spinal cord injury (SCI). Bacteriophages (phages) are viruses that solely infect and kill bacteria. The idea of using phages to treat bacterial infections, i.e., phage therapy, is very promising and potentially allows a more specific and personalized treatment of bacterial infections than antibiotics. While multi-drug resistant infections affect individuals from the general population, alternative therapeutic options are especially warranted in high-risk populations, such as individuals with SCI. However, more clinical data must be collected before phage therapy can be implemented in clinical practice, with numerous possible, subsequent applications.

Fig. 1. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) image of bacteriophages (phages) produced to treat a patient with a multi-resistant Enterobacter cloacae urinary tract infection.

The phages are composed of a capsid (containing the genome) connected to a contractile tail with protruding tail fibers which mediate interaction with bacterial surface receptors. Phages are highly host specific, meaning a given phage is capable of infecting only a narrow host range of bacteria (typically down to the species level). TEM image was kindly provided by Matthew Dunne, Ph.D., and Jiemin Du, M.Sc., from the Institute of Food, Nutrition and Health, ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland.