It is a pleasure to present the March 2023 issue of PHAGE and we hope that our readers have had a good year thus far. From our perspective, things have been exciting regarding the U.K. government investigation on why bacteriophages are not being developed in the United Kingdom. They recently launched an inquiry into what is limiting phage research and what is preventing the translation of fundamental work into much needed antimicrobials. The inquiry requested written evidence followed by sets of panel discussions from invited panel members.
Prof. Martha Clokie was there as part of a panel representing a U.K. academic perspective from within the newly established Centre for Phage Research at the University of Leicester, additionally there was also a clinical panel, and a panel to represent the viewpoints from an industrial viewpoint. PHAGE will have more on this topic and the outcome of the inquiry in future issues.
Onto the contents of this issue; we are pleased to present four research articles and a review article and of course a cartoon with the title “Twinkle, twinkle, little phage” from our editorial board member Ellie Jameson.
A major clinical need for novel approaches within human bacterial infectious diseases is lung conditions such as cystic fibrosis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Despite a widely accepted acknowledgment of a lack of effective antibiotics, and a possible use for phages, there is little published data on how bacteriophages could be used in this context to mitigate against infection. For example, the route(s) of administration, the dosage, and the formulation are all unclear and it is also not known whether phages should be used in conjunction with antibiotics. In this review article by Jessica Williams from the University of Exeter, the authors have made an extensive review of the literature to bring evidence that does exist within this setting into one useful place.
Salmonella is a particularly difficult bacteria to manage within agriculture, where it can reside within animals, and depending on the strain either make them sick or be transmitted to humans, causing serious food poisoning or worse as it can invade the epithelium and cause blood infections and other more serious outcomes. To investigate the potential of phages to be useful in different species settings, Janet Nale et al. used epithelial cells from different animals to compare the efficacy of a bacteriophage cocktail to either prevent or treat infection. The epithelial cells were derived from poultry, swine, and humans, respectively, and differed by the extent to which the bacteria were invasive. Results show that phages could indeed be useful to either prevent or treat disease.
It is likely that in some clinical settings, to reach their bacterial host, phages will need to be encapsulated in a formulation such as a liposome. Clearly it will be important to demonstrate that the encapsulated bacteriophage preparation does not elicit an immune reaction. To test this, in a study by Daniela Torres Di Bello et al. from Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia, the authors tested whether a bacteriophage that targets Cutibacterium (formally known as Propionibacterium) acnes elicited an immune reaction in HaCaT cells. The observation that it did not cause any such reaction is promising both for this specific application and other applications where bacteriophages are being delivered within liposomes.
Unlike antibiotics, bacteriophages tend to be incredibly specific at killing particular subspecies within a bacterial species. This means that when we are assessing the efficacy of specific phages, it is important to have a representative strain collection but encompasses all of the strains that the phage could encounter. The utility and applications of having a representative set of bacteria that represent major serotypes are beautifully presented by Amira Vitt from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
We strongly encourage phage researchers to submit their “Phage Introductions” to the journal, and in this issue a good example of this article type is the study by Ayse Cebeci et al. from the Central Fisheries Research Institute in Trabzin, Turkey, who provides an introduction to a novel Aeromonas hydrophila phage. This bacterial species is a major nuisance within aquaculture, and the phage presented here could be part of a novel approach to treating fish diseases.
We are excited by four upcoming major conferences within the phage community: the sixth Annual Phage Therapy Congress in June 1–2 in Paris, France (which will have an invitation for articles to make a special issue of PHAGE to capture the content of the presentations that will be given); the seventh Viruses of Microbes that will run during July 3–7, 2023, in Tbilisi, Georgia; the Evergreen State College, Phagebiotics Research Foundation 25th biennial International Evergreen Phage Meeting from August 6 to 11, 2023; and the 12th Annual Oxford Phage Meeting that will occur in September. So hopefully an agenda and destination or two to suit all to help us better understand and translate phages.
Best of wishes and happy reading!
Martha Clokie and Thomas Sicheritz-Pontén