Urinary bacteriophage cooperation with bacterial pathogens during human urinary tract infections supports lysogenic phage therapy.

ABSTRACT: Despite much promise in overcoming drug-resistant infections, clinical studies of bacteriophage antibacterial therapy have failed to show durable effectiveness. Although lysogeny plays an important role in bacterial physiology, its significance in diverse microbiomes remains unclear. Here, we tested the following hypotheses: 1) urinary microbiome phage populations switch to a higher relative proportion of temperate phages, and 2) the activity of the phage recombination machinery (integration/excision/transposition) is higher during human urinary tract infections (UTIs) than in non-infected urinary tracts. Using human urine, model organisms, mass spectrometry, gene expression analysis, and the phage phenotype prediction model BACPHLIP, the results corroborated our hypotheses at the function

SUBMITTER: Almosuli M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11794546 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature