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Antibiotic resistance is a major public health challenge today. To combat this phenomenon, Inserm researchers have developed a new mathematical model which would make it possible to better predict the effectiveness of phage therapy.
The overuse of antibiotics has contributed to the development and spread of antibiotic resistant bacteria. In this context, phage therapy – a form of biological control based on the destruction of bacteria by predatory viruses – has aroused renewed interest among researchers.
A new approach to phage therapy
Faced with the resurgence of resistant bacteria, the Inserm research team, in collaboration with the Institut Pasteur, has developed a new mathematical model which makes it possible to better define the interactions between bacteriophages and the pathogenic bacterium. Escherichia coli in animals. The goal? Remove obstacles related to phage therapy.
“Unlike “conventional” drugs, bacteriophages (viruses that only infect bacteria, editor’s note) are complex biological products, whose action in the body, the optimal dose or the most effective route of administration are difficult to determine. study and anticipate”can we read in the press release.
To build this model, data from in vitro and in vivo experiments were used.
The scientists relied in particular on the infection parameters of bacterial viruses, such as the duration of the infectious cycle or the number of viruses released when a bacterium is destroyed. Lung infections in mice – some infected with the bioluminescent E. Coli strain, others with bacteriophages – have also been closely observed.
The researchers then measured the amounts of bacteria and bacteriophages. This collection of data made it possible to feed the model and to determine which parameters were the most important.
Result: intratracheal phage therapy was the most effective, regardless of the dose of phage injected.
This model confirms the synergy between the phages and the immune system of infected animals.
In July 2021, two patients with severe bone and joint infections received compassionate treatment with phages. The treatment, administered at the Croix Rousse hospital, allowed patients to recover quickly.
“For the moment, no toxicity or major adverse reaction of the phages has been demonstrated.“, enthusiastically recalls Laurent DeBarbieux, researcher at the Institut Pasteur.
Phage therapy: where is the treatment in France?
One of the great advantages of bacteriophages or phages, unlike antibiotics, is that they attack a specific bacterium. They therefore do not destroy other bacteria (good and bad) like antibiotics do.
Despite these attributes, phage therapy is still very little present on the French market.
“There is still a lack of knowledge, especially on the part of doctors, because no product exists on the market. Phage therapy is a difficult treatment to access. To give a boost, private companies should start investing“, confides Laurent DeBarbieux.
To date, bacteriophages are mainly produced in Georgia and Poland. In France, only Pherecydes Pharma manufactures it, in very small quantities.