Therapeutic effectiveness of bacteriophage in the treatment of pneumonia caused by NDM-4 producing in a mouse model

Abstract

Exploration for an alternative to antibiotics to treat bacterial diseases is becoming more important due to the emergence of antibiotic resistance. Bacteriophage or phage has been used for the treatment of superficial infections. In this study, phage isolated from the environment was used as a therapeutic agent against NDM-producing causing respiratory disease in an experimental mouse model. The isolated phage was found to belong to the family based on morphology. For experiments, five groups of mice were used including infection-free, phage-only, bacteria-infected, and the other two groups infected with and treated either with an antibiotic, levofloxacin (50 mg/kg, twice a day intraperitoneally) or phage (3×10 PFU/mL). All the animals were observed for 72 hours for mortality, and the surviving mice were killed for analysis. In the infected group, pneumonia was developed after 48 hours, and 8/10 animals were dead after 72 hours. When pneumonia infected mice were treated with an antibiotic, levofloxacin all the animals survived but showed the signs of pneumonia, and there was up to 6 log CFU/g±0.82 reduction in the bacterial count. In phage treated group, all the animals survived at the end of 72 hours and all the animals were healthy with no signs of pneumonia. The experiment showed new insights into the biology of the broad host range of phage, demonstrating that phage has prospects for the treatment of pneumonia caused by the NDM-producing .