Bacteriophage therapy
Figure 2
Electron Micrographs of the Three Phages in the Cocktail
Note. These electron micrographs demonstrate the three phages components of the three-phage cocktail intravenously administered to the patient. Muddy is a natural phage. The host range of virulent phage BPs was extended via genetic engineering for the purpose of infecting the target strain of M. abscessus strain effectively. The repressor gene of temperate phage ZoeJ was engineered and removed using a phage-based genetic recombineering technique, thereby making it virulent. This figure is not covered by the Creative Commons (CC) Attribution 4.0
International License. Reprinted by permission from Springer Nature: Nature Medicine, Engineered bacteriophages for treatment of a patient with a disseminated drug-resistant Mycobacterium abscessus, Rebekah M. Dedrick et al. (2019), all rights reserved.
Figure 3
(a)
Patient Status Before and After Treatment
Note. (a) shows the patient’s lung function as per cent predicted forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1; blue) and forced vital capacity (FVC; red). A significant increase in capacity was observed immediately after lung transplant and during phage treatment. (b) shows the gradual healing of surgical wound and skin lesions on the patient’s body by comparison between 12 weeks before and 6 weeks post phage treatment. Over the next 6 months following the treatment, the patient significantly improved clinically. This figure is not covered by the Creative Commons (CC) Attribution 4.0 International License. Reprinted by permission from Springer Nature: Nature Medicine, Engineered bacteriophages for treatment of a patient with a disseminated drug-resistant Mycobacterium abscessus , Rebekah M. Dedrick et al. (2019), all rights reserved.
(b)
Current widely-applied approaches of cancer treatment include surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and hormonal therapy, with chemotherapy remaining one of the most preferred types of treatment. Having been identified as a genetically modifiable molecule (e.g., in Carnell- Holdaway’s case), phages have also been long exploited for their uses as therapeutic delivery platforms, particularly for molecular engineering, phage display, and gene therapy, which may be clinically valuable for the
treatment of cancers. The high specificity of phages, as well as their minute and homogeneous size, make them the most capable nanoparticles for accurate therapeutic delivery. Previous in vivo and in vitro studies also suggest that phages possess the capability of interacting with cancer cells (e.g.,
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