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01140. Phage-antibiotic combinations to eradicate Pseudomonas-Candida multi-infections
Background The declining sensitivity of pathogenic bacteria towards antibiotics is becoming a
global health problem. The use of bacteriophages to treat bacterial infections is being renewed to treat multi-drug resistant infections. Although there is strong evidence to prove the efficacy of phage-antibiotic combinations, it is unclear reports on the use of phage-antibiotics against
multiple infections caused by bacteria-fungi. This study aims to evaluate the phage-antibiotic
combinations against multi-infections caused by Pseudomonas-Candida.
Methods In this study, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Candida albicans were collected from the diagnostic centre in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. The bacteriophages were isolated from the sewage water samples using the phage enrichment method. The spot test and double agar overlay method were used to test the phage activity. The isolated phage was characterized by
morphologically and anti-biofilm efficacy was analyzed. Anti-microbial activity of fluconazole-sensitive Candida and phage-sensitive Pseudomonas was tested by co-culturing Pseudomonas
and Candida and treating with phage-fluconazole combinations.
Results The isolated Pseudomonas phage mottoφ belongs to the Siphoviridae family and found to have a broad-host-range activity to infect 32/50 MDR P. aeruginosa. The lifecycle parameters showed that the maximum adsorption was at 15 min and the latency period of 10 min with the burst size of 50 phages per infected cell. The anti-biofilm activity showed that the mottoφ was effective in eliminating the pseudomonal biofilm at 106 pfu/ml. The combination of fluconazole (4 mg/L) – mottoφ (106 pfu/ml) was able to reduce the Pseudomonas-Candida biomass load significantly which is another evidence to prove the efficacy of phage-antibiotic combinations in curing multiple infections.
Conclusions Phage therapy can be used to cure multiple bacterial infections and the phageantibiotic combination is effective in treating MDR infections. The use of phages (and antibiotics) against bacterial-fungal co-infection has rarely been studied and this work illustrates the potential and the efficacy of the mottoφ-fluconazole combination in reducing the pseudomonal-Candida multi-infection.
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