Bacteriophage (
phage) therapy involves using phages or their products as bioagents for the treatment or prophylaxis of bacterial
infectious diseases. Much evidence in support of the effectiveness of
phage therapy against bacterial
infectious diseases has accumulated since 1980 from animal model studies conducted in Western countries. Reports indicate that appropriate administration of living phages can be used to treat lethal
infectious diseases caused by gram-negative bacteria, such as Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Acinetobacter baumannii, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Vibrio vulnificus, and Salmonella spp., and gram-positive bacteria, such as Enterococcus faecium and Staphylococcus aureus. The phage display system and genetically modified nonreplicating phages are also effective for treatment of Helicobacter pylori and P. aeruginosa, respectively. In addition to phage particles per se, purified phage-encoded
peptidoglycan hydrolase (lysin) is also reported to be effective for the treatment of bacterial
infectious diseases caused by gram-positive bacteria such as Streptococcus pyogenes, S. pneumoniae, Bacillus anthracis, and group B streptococci. All phage lysins that have been studied to date exhibit immediate and strong bacteriolytic activity when applied exogenously. Furthermore, phage-coded inhibitors of
peptidoglycan synthesis (
protein antibiotics), search methods for novel
antibacterial agents using phage genome informatics, and
vaccines utilizing phages or their products are being developed.
Phage therapy will compensate for unavoidable complications of
chemotherapy such as the appearance of multidrug resistance or substituted microbism.