Project description:The emergence of carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii has been increasingly reported, leading to more challenges in treating its infections. With the development of phage therapy and phage-antibiotic combinations, it is possible to improve the treatment of bacterial infections. In the present study, a vB_AbaP_WU2001 (vWU2001 for short) phage-specific CRAB was isolated and the genome size is 40,792 bp in length. The novel phage vWU2001 belongs to the Autographiviridae family and the order Caudovirales. Shotgun proteomics identified 289 proteins. The broad host range phage vWU2001 displayed a high adsorption rate, short latent period, large burst size and good stability. The phage could reduce preformed biofilms and inhibit biofilm formation. The combination of phage vWU2001 and colistin had significantly higher bacterial growth inhibition activity than that of phage, or colistin alone. The efficacy of the combined treatment was also evaluated in Galleria mellonella. The evaluation of its therapeutic potential revealed that the combination of phage and colistin showed a significantly greater increase in G. mellonella survival and clearance of bacterial number compared to that of phage or colistin alone, indicating that the combination was synergistic against CRAB. The results demonstrated that phage vWU2001 has the potential to be developed as an antibacterial agent.
