Phage therapy: a step forward in the treatment of Pseudomonas aeruginosa infections

Antimicrobial resistance constitutes one of the major worldwide public health concerns. Bacteria are becoming resistant to the vast majority of antibiotics and nowadays, a common infection can be fatal. To revert this situation, the use of phages for the treatment of bacterial infections has been extensively studied as an alternative therapeutic strategy. Since P. aeruginosa is one of the most common causes of healthcare-associated infections, many studies have reported the in vitro and in vivo antibacterial efficacy of phage therapy against this bacterium. This review collects data of all the P. aeruginosa phages sequenced to date, providing a better understanding about their biodiversity. This review will further address the in vitro and in vivo results obtained by using phages to treat or prevent P. aeruginosa infections as well as the major hurdles associated with this therapy.

D.P.P. acknowledges financial support from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) (grant SFRH/BD/76440/2011). S.S. is an FCT investigator (IF/01413/2013).The authors also thank FCT for the Strategic Project of the UID/BIO/04469/2013 unit, FCT and the European Union (FEDER/COMPETE) for funds for the RECI/BBB-EBI/0179/2012 (FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-027462) project, and the “BioHealth-Biotechnology and Bioengineering approaches to improve health quality” (NORTE-07-0124-FEDER-000027) project, cofunded by the Programa Operaci