What is it about?
We obtained a sample of caecal effluent - essentially a pool of snot-like liquid - from the start of the large intestine of a healthy woman. From this sample, we were able to isolate bacteria, and viruses that kill bacteria (bacteriophages). One of these bacteriophages was able to infect and kill Klebsiella pneumoniae, a bacterium that is becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotics and, consequently, difficult to treat in some instances when it causes infections.
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Why is it important?
Bacteriophages (and their proteins) have potential as alternatives or adjuncts to antibiotic therapy to treat infections, so it is important to isolate and characterize them.
Perspectives
This was the first bacteriophage I isolated from intestinal samples, and it got me interested in bacteriophages as alternatives to antibiotic therapies.
Professor Lesley Hoyles
Nottingham Trent University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Klebsiella pneumoniaesubsp.pneumoniae–bacteriophage combination from the caecal effluent of a healthy woman, PeerJ, July 2015, PeerJ,
DOI: 10.7717/peerj.1061.
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