Understanding cell surface recognition by bacteriophages to engineer novel therapeutics targeting Enterococcus cecorum, an emerging poultry pathogen

盲肠肠球菌是一种细菌病原体，在过去十年中出现在全球肉鸡生产中，是骨骼病变和败血症导致死亡的原因。与E.盲肠炎感染在农业部门急剧增加，2021年在英国占29亿英镑。致病性大肠盲肠炎在鸡舍内迅速传播，但它如何在整个肉鸡生产中传播仍不清楚。目前还没有有效的疫苗，一旦鸡群出现麻痹的临床症状，抗菌治疗也是无效的。cecorum作为一种新的治疗解决方案，以取代禁用的抗微生物生长促进剂和预防性控制这种病原体。这项研究在很大程度上与学术主管的工作重叠，他们最近描述了针对粪肠球菌和屎肠球菌（两种重要的人类机会致病菌）的细菌表面聚合物，并确定了这些细菌表面聚合物用作受体。

Enterococcus cecorum is a bacterial pathogen that emerged in global chicken broiler production over the past decade as a cause of mortality due to skeletal lesions and septicemia. The economic burden associated with E. cecorum infections is increasing dramatically in a sector of the agricultural industry that represented £2.9bn in the UK in 2021. Pathogenic E. cecorum spread rapidly within a house but how it spreads throughout broiler production remains unclear. No effective vaccines exist, and antimicrobial therapy is ineffective once clinical signs of paralysis appear within the flock.Our industrial partner (Aparon Ltd) is developing bacteriophages targeting E. cecorum as a novel therapeutic solution to replace banned antimicrobial growth promoters and prophylactically control this pathogen. This research largely overlaps with the work carried out by the academic supervisors, who recently characterized phages targeting Enterococcus faecalis and Enterococcus faecium (two important human opportunistic pathogens) and identified the bacterial cell surface polymer used as a receptor by these phages.