Secondary Bacterial Infections During Pulmonary Viral Disease: Phage Therapeutics as Alternatives to Antibiotics?

Prasanth Manohar; Belinda Loh; Sudarsanan Athira; Ramesh Nachimuthu; Xiaoting Hua; Susan C Welburn; Sebastian Leptihn

doi:10.3389/fmicb.2020.01434

Secondary Bacterial Infections During Pulmonary Viral Disease: Phage Therapeutics as Alternatives to Antibiotics?

Front Microbiol. 2020 Jun 26:11:1434. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2020.01434. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Prasanth Manohar^{1

2}, Belinda Loh¹, Sudarsanan Athira³, Ramesh Nachimuthu³, Xiaoting Hua^{4

5}, Susan C Welburn^{1

6}, Sebastian Leptihn^{1

4

6}

Affiliations

¹ Zhejiang University-University of Edinburgh Institute, Zhejiang University, Haining, China.
² The Second Affiliated Hospital, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.
³ Antibiotic Resistance and Phage Therapy Laboratory, School of Biosciences and Technology, Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore, India.
⁴ Department of Infectious Diseases, Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.
⁵ Key Laboratory of Microbial Technology and Bioinformatics of Zhejiang Province, Hangzhou, China.
⁶ Infection Medicine, Biomedical Sciences, Edinburgh Medical School, College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom.

Abstract

Secondary bacterial infections manifest during or after a viral infection(s) and can lead to negative outcomes and sometimes fatal clinical complications. Research and development of clinical interventions is largely focused on the primary pathogen, with research on any secondary infection(s) being neglected. Here we highlight the impact of secondary bacterial infections and in particular those caused by antibiotic-resistant strains, on disease outcomes. We describe possible non-antibiotic treatment options, when small molecule drugs have no effect on the bacterial pathogen and explore the potential of phage therapy and phage-derived therapeutic proteins and strategies in treating secondary bacterial infections, including their application in combination with chemical antibiotics.

Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; phage endolysins; phage therapy; pulmonary viruses; secondary bacterial infection.

Publication types

Review