Investigation of in vitro phage therapy with free and encapsulated phage targeting S. aureus infection in human cells.

噬菌体，或称噬菌体，是一种能够以极高的特异性攻击宿主细菌的病毒。由于它们的基因组很小，它们是遗传工程的优秀工具。由于细菌耐药性的问题，使用噬菌体作为治疗药物而不是传统的广谱抗生素来治疗/控制细菌感染的概念正变得越来越重要。金黄色葡萄球菌因其耐甲氧西林金黄色葡萄球菌(MRSA)血清型而臭名昭著。金黄色葡萄球菌等耐药菌株的出现是患者的主要健康问题。再加上金黄色葡萄球菌缺乏批准的疫苗以及它们清除细菌感染的特异性，这使得噬菌体疗法的选择非常有吸引力。文献表明，将噬菌体包裹在脂质体中会使噬菌体在溶液中更稳定，有可能增加循环时间作为一种治疗方法，并使任何基于噬菌体的疗法在储存中更稳定。在这个项目中，我们的目标是研究金黄色葡萄球菌在不同人类细胞系中的入侵情况，并利用金黄色葡萄球菌特异性K噬菌体控制感染的可能性。然后，我们的目标是将噬菌体K包裹到脂质体中，并测试包裹的噬菌体清除感染的效率，以验证它们是一种提供受控和安全的噬菌体治疗的方法。

Bacteriophages, or phages, are viruses that can target their host bacteria with great specificity. Due to their small genome they are excellent tools for genetic engineering. The concept of using phages as therapeutics contrary to conventional broad spectrum antibiotics for the treatment/control of bacterial infections is becoming important due to the problem of antimicrobial resistance. Staphyloccoccus aureus is infamous for its methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) serotype. The emergence of antibiotic-resistant strains of S. aureus such as is a major health problem for patients. In combination with the lack of an approved vaccine for S. aureus and their specificity for clearing bacterial infections, this has made the option of phage therapy to be very attractive. Literature has shown encapsulating phage in liposomes causes phage to be more stable in solution, potentially allowing to increase circulation time as a therapeutic and making any phage based therapeutics more stable in storage. In this project, we aim to investigate the invasion of S. aureus in different human cell lines with the potential to control the infection using a S. aureus-specific K phage. We then aim to encapsulate phage K into liposomes and test the efficiency of infection clearance by the encapsulated phages to validate them as a method for delivering controlled and safe phage therapy.