Bioprospecting technique uncovers viruses that can kill deadly superbugs

In a modern take on the Victorian gold rush, a Monash University-led project is successfully "bioprospecting" for viruses known as phages that can kill deadly superbugs. The Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute (BDI) team, led by Dr. Rhys Dunstan and Professor Trevor Lithgow of the Bacterial Cell Biology Laboratory, has had some success in tracking down the elusive killers.

Published in Cell Reports, their research sheds new light on how phages can select a "superbug" bacterium that they will kill while ignoring other bacteria that are good for our health. The findings could lead to an improvement in how individual phages are chosen to treat bacterial infections resistant to antibiotics.

In the latest study, Dr. Dunstan surveyed waste-water at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge, U.K., for phages that can kill a deadly variant of the bacterial superbug Klebsiella pneumoniae.

Klebsiella pneumoniae normally lives in human intestines, where it doesn't cause disease. But if it travels to other parts of the body, it can cause pneumonia, meningitis, urinary tract infections and bloodstream infections.

"One of our aims is to create a biobank of different phages that can kill Klebsiella superbugs. Understanding how these phages kill Klebsiella will allow us to better optimize their use as potential treatments."

Image source: Dunstan et al. (2023), Cell Reports.