Clinical and Environmental Microbiology Branch, Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA, USA.
EcoSal Plus. 2020 Oct;9(1). doi: 10.1128/ecosalplus.ESP-0029-2019.
Members of the family , such as , are considered both serious and urgent public health threats. Biofilms formed by these health care-associated pathogens can lead to negative and costly health outcomes. The global spread of antibiotic resistance, coupled with increased tolerance to antimicrobial treatments in biofilm-associated bacteria, highlights the need for novel strategies to overcome treatment hurdles. Bacteriophages (phages), or viruses that infect bacteria, have reemerged as one such potential strategy. Virulent phages are capable of infecting and killing their bacterial hosts, in some cases producing depolymerases that are able to hydrolyze biofilms. Phage therapy does have its limitations, however, including potential narrow host ranges, development of bacterial resistance to infection, and the potential spread of phage-encoded virulence genes. That being said, advances in phage isolation, screening, and genome sequencing tools provide an upside in overcoming some of these limitations and open up the possibilities of using phages as effective biofilm control agents.
家族成员等被认为是严重且紧迫的公共卫生威胁。这些与医疗保健相关的病原体形成的生物膜会导致负面且代价高昂的健康后果。抗生素耐药性的全球传播，加上生物膜相关细菌对抗菌治疗的耐受性增加，凸显了需要新的策略来克服治疗障碍。噬菌体（phages），即感染细菌的病毒，重新成为一种潜在的策略。毒性噬菌体能够感染和杀死其细菌宿主，在某些情况下产生能够水解生物膜的解聚酶。然而，噬菌体治疗确实存在一些局限性，包括潜在的宿主范围狭窄、细菌对感染产生抗性的可能性以及噬菌体编码的毒力基因传播的可能性。话虽如此，噬菌体分离、筛选和基因组测序工具的进步提供了克服其中一些限制的优势，并开辟了将噬菌体用作有效生物膜控制剂的可能性。
