A new technology uses viruses specifically against antibiotic-resistant bacteria. This revolutionary method could change the way serious infections are treated.
A team of researchers at the Gladstone Institute – including Kate Crawford, seen here – have developed a technology that allows them to edit the genomes of bacteria-fighting viruses called phages in a rational and highly effective way.
Foto: Michael Short/Gladstone Institutes
Antibiotic resistance is a growing threat to health worldwide. Every year, thousands of people die from infections that conventional antibiotics are powerless against. Therefore, scientists are looking for new ways to overcome this resistance. A promising development now comes from a research team at the Gladstone Institute in San Francisco. They have developed an innovative technology that harnesses the power of bacteriophages – special viruses that attack bacteria. This discovery could change the treatment of infections that are resistant to common antibiotics.
What are bacteriophages?
Bacteriophages, or phages, are viruses that naturally infect and destroy bacteria. They are highly specific and only attack certain strains of bacteria. While antibiotics often kill many types of bacteria at once, phages can be used specifically against individual bacteria.
This precision makes phages an attractive tool for fighting infections where antibiotics are no longer effective. However, the use of phages has so far been challenging because selecting and adapting the right phages for a specific infection is complex.
The challenge of phage therapy
In theory, phages offer an ideal alternative to antibiotics. In practice, however, their use is still difficult. Doctors must find a suitable phage that attacks the specific bacteria that causes the infection. This process is time-consuming and not always successful. Researchers have therefore looked for ways to specifically modify phages and increase their effect.
As mentioned above, the team at the Gladstone Institute has now developed a new technology that can efficiently edit the genome of phages. This technology could help make phages more effective for medical use.
New technology optimizes phages
The method developed by Gladstone is based on so-called retrons. These come from the bacterial immune system and function like small factories for producing DNA. The scientists have found a way to program these retrons to produce certain DNA sequences in bacteria. When the phages infect the bacterial colony, they absorb these DNA sequences and incorporate them into their own genome.
Using this technique, researchers can now produce and test many different phage variants quickly and efficiently. This opens up completely new possibilities for using phages as a weapon against antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
The enemy of my enemy
Phages are natural enemies of bacteria and play a central role in microbial ecosystems. With the increasing number of infections that are resistant to multiple antibiotics, scientists are investigating the potential of phages as a new therapy. Every year, there are many millions of infections with antibiotic-resistant bacteria worldwide. In many cases, phages can help where antibiotics fail.
“The enemy of your enemy is your friend,” says Seth Shipman, one of the project’s leading researchers. Phages could become an important ally in the fight against resistant bacteria.
Fast success through new technology
The new technology allows researchers to modify phages more quickly and in a more targeted manner. Previous attempts to modify phages were often laborious and time-consuming. Scientists had to spend a lot of time searching for phages that were effective by chance. Now they can specifically insert changes into the genome of phages and thus improve the efficiency and specificity of the phages.
This method allows many different phage variants to be generated and tested in a short period of time. This makes it possible to create larger collections of phages that can be tested for their therapeutic efficacy. In the long term, this technique could help speed up the development of new treatments against antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
Phage editing: A platform for the future
According to the team at the Gladstone Institute, the technology is based on a platform that allows several genetic changes to be inserted into phages at the same time. This will allow researchers to better understand how phages work and which genetic changes increase or decrease their effectiveness. In the future, these findings could lead to phages being used specifically as a therapy against certain bacterial infections.
Another advantage of the new technology is that researchers can work on several phages at the same time. As phages jump from one bacterium to the next, they absorb the new genetic information and integrate it into their own genome. This creates phages with several genetic changes within a short period of time. This diversity enables researchers to develop phages that are particularly effective against resistant bacteria.
The researchers’ goal is to develop and test millions of different phage variants. These huge libraries of phages could serve as the basis for a new generation of therapies in the future. The technology has the potential to change the use of phages in medicine and fundamentally influence the treatment of infections that are resistant to antibiotics.
Click here to read the study on nature.com
