WIKIMEDIA, DR GRAHAM BEARDS Using bacteriophages to deliver a specific CRISPR/Cas system into antibiotic-resistant bacteria can sensitize the microbes to the drugs, according to a study published this week (May 18) in PNAS. The approach, developed by Udi Qimron of Tel Aviv University and his colleagues, is a modified version of phage therapy that does not require the delivery of phages to infected tissues and could help offset the pressure on bacterial populations to evolve drug resistance, according to the team.
Unlike classic phage therapy, which uses one or more types of phages to infect and lyse specific bacterial strains, the crux of this new approach is using these specialized viruses to supply CRISPR/Cas to rid bacteria of antibiotic-resistance plasmids in the environment before the microbes are able to infect a host. Each phage is specific to a bacterial species or strain and, using CRISPR, researchers can target a specific bacterial sequence.
“The CRISPR technique is at the heart of [this work],” said Michael Terns, a research professor of biochemistry, molecular biology, genetics, and microbiology at the University of Georgia who was not involved in the work. “It’s a nice application of the CRISPR system to attack resistance genes using phage as a vehicle.”
“The classic ...
