image: Bacteriophage (magenta) attack Pseudomonas aeruginosa (teal) biofilms grown in association with respiratory epithelial cells (nuclei, yellow).
Credit: Paula Zamora (CC-BY 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Phage therapy is being explored to treat multidrug-resistant bacterial infections, but what are the direct effects of phages on the human host?
This study shows that therapeutic phages can be detected by epithelial cells of the human respiratory tract, eliciting proinflammatory responses that depend on specific phage properties and the airway microenvironment.
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In your coverage, please use this URL to provide access to the freely available paper in PLOS Biology: http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3002566
Article Title: Lytic bacteriophages induce the secretion of antiviral and proinflammatory cytokines from human respiratory epithelial cells
Author Countries: United States
Funding: This work was supported by a Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (CFF, www.cff.org) Postdoctoral Fellowship ZAMORA20F0 and National Institute of Health (NIH, www.nih.org) grant T32AI060525 to P.F.Z.; CFF grants ARMBRU19F0 and ARMBRU22F5 and NIH grant T32HL129949 to C.R.A; and CFF grant BOMBER21P0 to J.M.B. The funders of this work did not play a role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Journal
PLoS Biology
Method of Research
Observational study
Subject of Research
Cells
COI Statement
Competing interests: I have read the journal’s policy and the authors of this manuscript have the following competing interests: PET is cofounder of Felix Biotechnology, Inc., a company that seeks to develop phages for human therapy. Yale University has an institutional conflict of interest related to this project (PET & JLK). Yale may receive financial benefit related to the therapy used in this protocol.