Development of Phage Cocktails

Creative Biolabs is a contract research company with cutting-edge technology and equipment to provide global clients with valid research services. Driven by the desire for a healthy life for humans, it is urgent to develop new antimicrobial therapies for various bacterial populations to address the misuse of antibiotics, additives, and other antimicrobial drugs, as well as the problem of antibiotic resistance. Creative Biolabs with its exquisite insight has developed a range of services to support the global customer in exploring phage cocktails to meet research and development needs.

Background of Phage Cocktail

With the development of antibiotic resistance as a result of the misuse of antibiotics, although phage therapy can cope with some of the antibiotic resistance problems, it can no longer meet the increasing antibacterial needs. Therefore, a novel pharmacological approach, phage cocktail, has been developed using synergistic effects and is being used to successfully target a variety of different bacterial strains with its wide spectrum of activity, while reducing the potential for bacteria to evolve phage resistance.

Considerations of Phage Cocktail Development

Fig.1 Variations in phage cocktail breadth and depth of activity.¹

Several factors have to be taken into account when designing phage cocktail therapy to achieve therapeutic goals. Marketed commercial products are typically targeted at single-species targets, which do not need to be as broadly active as cocktails with multi-species targets. Given the limited host range of monophages, to achieve a broader spectrum of activity, a cocktail is designed to consist of at least one phage that targets multiple species. However, although multiple-species cocktails display a considerable breadth of activity, it is not easy to isolate multiple-species cocktails targeting both gram-positive and gram-negative bacterial species.

A more effective approach to developing phage cocktail therapeutics is to combine multiple phages possessing different host ranges, targeting a large fraction of the bacterial strains that belong to a single bacterial species. The single-species cocktails are typically designed with broad breadth as off-the-shell products for commercial use. Phage cocktails are also developed for single strains, which emphasize the depth of activity, targeting cross resistance that may evolve in the course of phage treatment. The single-strain cocktails are applied for custom made phage therapies, which extend the utility of a phage cocktail and decrease the frequency of the evolution of phage cocktail resistance and treatment failure.

Phage Cocktail Development Services at Creative Biolabs

Creative Biolabs is devoted to providing a full range of services for the development of phage cocktails. Our professional team designs the optimal phage cocktail solution according to your requirements. With the assistance of advanced technology and equipment, we provide comprehensive phage isolation, purification, enrichment, and characterization services to screen the best phages for phage cocktail therapy. In addition, our in vitro and in vivo services allow the efficacy and safety of the phage cocktail therapy to be tested for the achievement of optimal treatment goals. To learn more about the exploration of phage cocktails, please feel free to contact us, or click the following links:

• Phage Isolation and Enrichment
• Phage Identification and Characterization
• In Vitro Phage Lytic Activity Determination Assays
• In Vitro Phage-Biofilm Interaction Assays
• In Vivo Services for Phage-based Therapy Development
• Phage Resistance Solutions

Reference:

1. Abedon, Stephen T., Katarzyna M. Danis-Wlodarczyk, and Daniel J. Wozniak. "Phage cocktail development for bacteriophage therapy: toward improving spectrum of activity breadth and depth." Pharmaceuticals 14.10 (2021): 1019. Under Open Access license CC BY 4.0, without modification.