Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus as alternative therapy for the treatment of multidrug resistant bacterial lung infections, in Cystic Fibrosis patients.
Infections caused by multidrug-resistant bacteria with biofilm production ability are common and hardly treatable in Cystic Fibrosis (CF) patients, making research on new therapies a must. Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus is a Gram negative predator bacterium, able to destroy biofilms, that has already been proposed for treating bacterial infections. Preliminary our studies revealed the presence of B. bacteriovorus in healthy human intestinal mucosae, and showed B. bacteriovorus predatory activity versus Pseudomonas aeruginosa in sessile (biofilm) and planktonic forms, and Staphylococcus aureus biofilm. The aim of the present study is to evaluate B. bacteriovorus therapeutic potentiality in the treatment/prevention of pulmonary infections, induced by multidrug resistant bacterial strains isolated from respiratory samples of CF patients. The study will be carried out in experimental models representative of pulmonary infections in CF patients, such as pulmonary epithelial cell lines, CFT1 (derived from a CF patient and characterized by the F508 deletion) and HBE1 (the proficient counterpart of CFT1), and as a live model, the Galleria mellonella wax moth larvae.