A Ternary Antimicrobial System Assaying Bacteriophage Against Human Pathogens using C. elegans Nematodes

Antibiotic resistance is a critical problem in medicine, whereby pathogenic bacteria become able to overcome medicinal treatments One approach to fighting antibiotic resistance is the use of bacteriophages ("phages"), viruses that attack bacteria, a strategy known as "phage therapy". Phages can target specific bacteria, thereby avoiding the problem of antibiotics that kill a wide spectrum of bacteria, including neutral or beneficial bacteria. Phages have been used as antibiotics for a century, but suffer from two limitations: a) bacteria acquire phage resistance; and b) phage effects in the test tube were observed to differ from their effects in the body. Thus, we have isolated a bacteriophage against a human pathogen Salmonella enterica serovar typhimurium and have fully characterized its growth and annotated its genome. Then, we tested its ability to mitigate Salmonella infection in C. elegans.