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

盲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，是由于骨骼病变和败血症导致死亡的原因。在农业行业中，与肠杆菌感染相关的经济负担正在急剧增加，到2021年，该行业在英国占29亿英镑。致病性盲肠杆菌在鸡舍内迅速传播，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，抗菌治疗就无效了。我们的工业合作伙伴（Aparon Ltd）正在开发针对盲肠大肠杆菌的噬菌体，作为一种新的治疗方案，以取代禁用的抗菌生长促进剂，并预防性控制这种病原体。这项研究在很大程度上与学术导师的工作重叠，他们最近表征了针对粪肠球菌和粪肠球菌（两种重要的人类机会致病菌）的噬菌体，并鉴定了这些噬菌体用作受体的细菌细胞表面聚合物。

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.