Phage Therapy Experience at the Eliava Phage Therapy Center: Three Cases of Bacterial Persistence.
Elisabed Zaldastanishvili, Lika Leshkasheli, Mariam Dadiani, Lia Nadareishvili, Lia Askilashvili, Nino Kvatadze, Marina Goderdzishvili, Mzia Kutateladze, Nana Balarjishvili
Author Information
Elisabed Zaldastanishvili: Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Eliava Institute of Bacteriophages, Microbiology and Virology, 0160 Tbilisi, Georgia. ORCID
Lika Leshkasheli: Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Eliava Institute of Bacteriophages, Microbiology and Virology, 0160 Tbilisi, Georgia.
Mariam Dadiani: Eliava Phage Therapy Center (EPTC), 0160 Tbilisi, Georgia.
Lia Nadareishvili: Eliava Phage Therapy Center (EPTC), 0160 Tbilisi, Georgia. ORCID
Lia Askilashvili: Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Eliava Institute of Bacteriophages, Microbiology and Virology, 0160 Tbilisi, Georgia.
Nino Kvatadze: Laboratory of General Microbiology, Eliava Institute of Bacteriophages, Microbiology and Virology, 0160 Tbilisi, Georgia.
Marina Goderdzishvili: Laboratory of General Microbiology, Eliava Institute of Bacteriophages, Microbiology and Virology, 0160 Tbilisi, Georgia.
Mzia Kutateladze: Eliava Institute of Bacteriophages, Microbiology and Virology, 0160 Tbilisi, Georgia.
Nana Balarjishvili: Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Eliava Institute of Bacteriophages, Microbiology and Virology, 0160 Tbilisi, Georgia.
In this retrospective descriptive study we focus on cases of three patients who underwent phage therapy procedures at Eliava Phage Therapy Center (EPTC) in Tbilisi, Georgia. Patients with chronic infectious diseases related to (two patients, lower respiratory tract infection (LRTI)) and (one patient, urinary tract infection (UTI)) are among those very few EPTC patients whose pathogens persisted through phage therapy. By looking at bacterial strains and personalized phages used against them we tried to point towards possible adaptation strategies that are employed by these pathogens. Genome restriction-based Pulsed Field Gel Electrophoresis (PFGE) profiling of strains isolated before and after phage therapy hints towards two strategies of adaptation. In one patient case ( related lung infection) bacterial strains before and after phage therapy were indistinguishable according to their PFGE profiles, but differed in their phage susceptibility properties. On the other hand, in two other patient cases ( related LRTI and related UTI) bacterial adaptation strategy seemed to have resulted in diversification of infecting strains of the same species. With this work we want to attract more attention to phage resistance in general as well as to its role in phage therapy.
