Description
The rise of multidrug resistant bacteria currently threatens human health worldwide. Hence, the search for new antimicrobial strategies to cure bacterial infections caused by antibiotic resistant bacteria is urgent as conventional antibiotics are rendered ineffective. Multidrug resistant Escherichia coli species are emerging over the past few decades. Consequently, the treatment of its intestinal, urinary tract and bloodstream infections becomes challenging. As an alternative to fight such microbial infections, bacteriophage therapy is often proposed. Another promising antibacterial strategy is the exploitation of antibacterial toxins from bacterial toxin-antitoxin (TA) systems. TA- systems are bacterial genetic elements that encode a toxin protein, which leads to cell death, and a cognate antitoxin that neutralizes the toxic effect. The combination of phage therapy with toxins is an interesting approach for the treatment of E. coli infections. By engineering the antibacterial toxins into the genome of bacteriophages via homologous recombination, the phage can serve as vehicle to deliver the exogenous toxins into the pathogenic bacterial cell, where it is expressed during the lysogenic cycle. Ultimately, these recombinant bacteriophages can be used as a powerful tool to combat infectious, multi-resistant bacteria, both in the lytic and lysogenic cycle.| Period | 1 Nov 2021 → 30 Oct 2025 |
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| Held at | Research Foundation Flanders, Belgium |
| Degree of Recognition | National |