van den Berg Daan F, Brouns Stan J J
Department of Bionanoscience, Delft University of Technology, Delft, the Netherlands.
Kavli Institute of Nanoscience, Delft, the Netherlands.
mBio. 2025 Apr 9;16(4):e0354824. doi: 10.1128/mbio.03548-24. Epub 2025 Feb 25.
Cystic fibrosis is a genetic disorder that affects mucus clearance, particularly of the lungs. As a result, cystic fibrosis patients often experience infections from bacteria, which contribute to the disease progression. is one of the most common opportunistic pathogens associated with cystic fibrosis. The presence of complicates the treatment due to its high antibiotic resistance. Thus, research is ongoing to treat these infections with bacterial viruses instead, known as bacteriophages. Notably, clinical strains possess a variety of phage defense mechanisms that may limit the effectiveness of phage therapy. In this study, we compared the defense system repertoire of strains isolated from cystic fibrosis patients with those from non-cystic fibrosis patients. Our findings reveal that strains isolated from cystic fibrosis patients have fewer phage defense mechanisms per strain than from non-cystic fibrosis patients, suggesting altered phage selection pressures in strains colonizing CF patient lungs.IMPORTANCECystic fibrosis patients often experience chronic lung infections, which are challenging to treat with antibiotics and contribute to disease progression and eventual respiratory failure. Phage therapy is being explored as an alternative treatment strategy for these infections. However, assessing strain susceptibility to phage treatment is essential for ensuring efficacy. To address this, we investigated whether CF-associated clinical strains have a distinct phage defense repertoire compared with those isolated from other lung patients. We observed that CF-associated strains have significantly fewer phage defenses, possibly affecting the susceptibility of these strains to phage infection.
囊性纤维化是一种影响黏液清除功能的遗传性疾病，尤其是肺部黏液的清除。因此，囊性纤维化患者常遭受细菌感染，这会促使疾病进展。 是与囊性纤维化相关的最常见的机会性病原体之一。由于其高度的抗生素耐药性， 的存在使治疗变得复杂。因此，目前正在进行研究，改用细菌病毒（即噬菌体）来治疗这些感染。值得注意的是， 临床菌株具有多种噬菌体防御机制，这可能会限制噬菌体疗法的有效性。在本研究中，我们比较了从囊性纤维化患者中分离出的 菌株与从非囊性纤维化患者中分离出的菌株的防御系统组成。我们的研究结果表明，从囊性纤维化患者中分离出的 菌株每株的噬菌体防御机制比从非囊性纤维化患者中分离出的菌株少，这表明在定植于囊性纤维化患者肺部的菌株中，噬菌体选择压力发生了改变。重要性囊性纤维化患者常经历慢性肺部感染，用抗生素治疗具有挑战性，且会促使疾病进展并最终导致呼吸衰竭。噬菌体疗法正作为这些感染的替代治疗策略进行探索。然而，评估菌株对噬菌体治疗的敏感性对于确保疗效至关重要。为解决这一问题，我们调查了与囊性纤维化相关的临床 菌株与从其他肺部疾病患者中分离出的菌株相比，是否具有独特的噬菌体防御组成。我们观察到，与囊性纤维化相关的 菌株的噬菌体防御机制明显较少
