Means to facilitate the overcoming of gastric juice barrier by a therapeutic staphylococcal bacteriophage A5/80

Abstract

In this article we compare the efficacy of different pharmacological agents (ranitidine, and omeprazole) to support phage transit from stomach to distal portions of the gastrointestinal tract in rats. We show that a temporal modification of environment in the animal stomach may protect Twort-like therapeutic antistaphylococcal phage A5/80 (from bacteriophage collection of the Hirszfeld Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy PAS in Wroclaw, Poland) from the inactivation by gastric juice effectively enough to enable a significant fraction of orally administered A5/80 to pass to the intestine. Interestingly, we found that yogurt may be a relatively strong in enhancing phage transit. Given the immunomodulating activities of phages our data may suggest that phages and yogurt can act synergistically in mediating their probiotic activities and enhancing the effectiveness of oral phage therapy. We also demonstrate that orally applied phages of similar size, morphology, and sensitivity to acidic environment may differ in their translocation into the bloodstream. This was evident in mice in which a therapeutic staphylococcal phage A5/80 reached the blood upon oral administration combined with antacid agent whilst T4 phage was not detected even when applied in 103 times higher dose. Our findings also suggest that phage penetration from digestive tract to the blood may be species-specific.