A Novel Method to Create Efficient Phage Cocktails via Use of Phage-Resistant Bacteria
Chengcheng Li, Tongmei Shi, Yuechao Sun, Yongyu Zhang
Abstract
The rapid antiphage mutation of pathogens is a big challenge often encountered in phage therapy. Using a cocktail composed of phages with different infection strategies can better overcome this problem. However, randomly selecting phages with different infection strategies is time-consuming and labor intensive. To address this problem, we developed a method to efficiently obtain phages with disparate infection strategies. The trick is to use the characteristics of the pathogenic bacteria that are prone to develop resistance to single phage infection to rapidly obtain the antiphage variant of the pathogen. Using this antiphage variant as the host results in other phages with different infection strategies being efficiently isolated. We also verified the reliability of this method by demonstrating the ideal phage control effects on two pathogens and thus revealed its potential importance in the development of phage therapies.