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Updated: Jul 3, 2025

Understanding the Impact of Temperate Bacteriophages on Their Lysogens Through Transcriptomics
Published on: January 5, 2024
Improving phage therapy by evasion of phage resistance mechanisms
Inés Bleriot1,2, Olga Pacios1,2, Lucia Blasco1,2
1Grupo de Microbiología Traslacional y Multidisciplinar (MicroTM)-Servicio de Microbiología Instituto de Investigación Biomédica A Coruña (INIBIC), Hospital A Coruña (CHUAC), Universidad de A Coruña (UDC), A Coruña, Spain.
Abstract:
Antibiotic failure is one of the most worrisome threats to global health. Among the new therapeutic efforts that are being explored, the use of bacteriophages (viruses that kill bacteria), also known as 'phages', is being extensively studied as a strategy to target bacterial pathogens. However, one of the main drawbacks of phage therapy is the plethora of defence mechanisms that bacteria use to defend themselves against phages. This review aims to summarize the therapeutic approaches that are being evaluated to overcome the bacterial defence systems, including the most innovative therapeutic approaches applied: circumvention of phage receptor mutations; modification of prophages; targeting of CRISPR-Cas systems and the biofilm matrix; engineering of safer and more efficacious phages; and inhibition of the anti-persister strategies used by bacteria.
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