Accessing the In Vivo Efficiency of Clinically Isolated Phages against Uropathogenic and Invasive Biofilm-Forming Strains for Phage Therapy.

is one of the most common members of the intestinal microbiota. Many of its strains are associated with various inflammatory infections, including urinary or gut infections, especially when displaying antibiotic resistance or in patients with suppressed immune systems. According to recent reports, the biofilm-forming potential of is a crucial factor for its increased resistance against antibiotics. To overcome the limitations of using antibiotics against resistant strains, the world is turning once more towards bacteriophage therapy, which is becoming a promising candidate amongst the current personalized approaches to target different bacterial infections. Although matured and persistent biofilms pose a serious challenge to phage therapy, they can still become an effective alternative to antibiotic treatment. Here, we assess the efficiency of clinically isolated phages in phage therapy against representative clinical uropathogenic and invasive biofilm-forming strains. Our results demonstrate that irrespective of host specificity, bacteriophages producing clear plaques with a high burst size, and exhibiting depolymerizing activity, are good candidates against biofilm-producing pathogens as verified from our in vitro and in vivo experiments using where survival was significantly increased for phage-therapy-treated larvae.