Microbiology and Virology Unit, Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan, Italy.
Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan, Italy.
J Immunol Res. 2017;2017:3780697. doi: 10.1155/2017/3780697. Epub 2017 Apr 16.
Bacteriophage therapy dates back almost a century, but the discovery of antibiotics led to a rapid decline in the interests and investments within this field of research. Recently, the novel threat of multidrug-resistant bacteria highlighted the alarming drop in research and development of new antibiotics: 16 molecules were discovered during 1983-87, 10 new therapeutics during the nineties, and only 5 between 2003 and 2007. Phages are therefore being reconsidered as alternative therapeutics. Phage display technique has proved to be extremely promising for the identification of effective antibodies directed against pathogens, as well as for vaccine development. At the same time, conventional phage therapy uses lytic bacteriophages for treatment of infections and recent clinical trials have shown great potential. Moreover, several other approaches have been developed in vitro and in vivo using phage-derived proteins as antibacterial agents. Finally, their use has also been widely considered for public health surveillance, as biosensor phages can be used to detect food and water contaminations and prevent bacterial epidemics. These novel approaches strongly promote the idea that phages and their proteins can be exploited as an effective weapon in the near future, especially in a world which is on the brink of a "postantibiotic era."
噬菌体疗法可以追溯到近一个世纪前，但抗生素的发现导致该研究领域的兴趣和投资迅速减少。最近，多药耐药菌的新威胁凸显出人们对新抗生素研发的警觉性下降：在 1983 年至 1987 年间发现了 16 种分子，在 90 年代发现了 10 种新疗法，而在 2003 年至 2007 年间仅发现了 5 种。因此，噬菌体被重新视为替代疗法。噬菌体展示技术已被证明在鉴定针对病原体的有效抗体以及疫苗开发方面极具潜力。与此同时，传统的噬菌体疗法使用裂解噬菌体来治疗感染，最近的临床试验表明其具有巨大的潜力。此外，还在体外和体内开发了几种其他方法，使用噬菌体衍生的蛋白质作为抗菌剂。最后，它们的用途也已被广泛用于公共卫生监测，因为噬菌体生物传感器可用于检测食物和水污染，并预防细菌流行。这些新方法强烈地推动了这样一种观点，即噬菌体及其蛋白质可以在不久的将来被用作一种有效的武器，尤其是在这个即将进入“后抗生素时代”的世界中。
