Bacteriophage-mediated pathogen suppression

Bacteriophage-mediated pathogen suppression is a therapeutic strategy that utilizes bacteriophages—viruses that specifically infect and replicate within bacteria—to eliminate or inhibit pathogenic bacterial populations. The primary mechanism involves the lytic cycle, where the phage binds to specific bacterial surface receptors, injects its genome, and hijacks the host's machinery to produce new virions, ultimately resulting in bacterial cell lysis and death (NCBI, 2017). This approach is increasingly explored as an alternative to conventional antibiotics, especially for treating multi-drug resistant (MDR) infections such as those caused by Pseudomonas aeruginosa or Staphylococcus aureus (Cell Host & Microbe, 2019). Beyond direct killing, phages can also suppress pathogens by increasing their susceptibility to antibiotics or by outcompeting them within a niche (Annual Review of Medicine, 2023). However, therapeutic application faces challenges including the high specificity of phages, potential for bacterial resistance, and the risk of releasing bacterial endotoxins during rapid lysis. While not a single molecular target, this process represents a complex biological interaction used to achieve therapeutic outcomes in infectious diseases.

Other names

Phage therapyBacteriophage therapyPhage-mediated biocontrolViral-mediated bacterial suppressionPhage-mediated lysis

Induction of the lytic cycle through attachment to specific bacterial surface receptors, followed by genome injection, replication, and enzymatic degradation of the bacterial cell wall (peptidoglycan) by endolysins, leading to osmotic lysis and host cell death.