ArticleApplied and environmental microbiology2015
Burkholderia cepacia complex Phage-Antibiotic Synergy (PAS): antibiotics stimulate lytic phage activity.
Article in Applied and environmental microbiology, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 139 papers.
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Who cites it
139 citing papers in PubMed.
- Research progress on nanomaterials in promoting phage function and application.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2026Review
- Chloramphenicol and tetracycline synergize with bacteriophage SeKF_13 to inactivate antimicrobial-resistantMicrobiology spectrum · 2026Article
- Systematic combinatorial optimization of three-phage cocktails against multidrug-resistantMicrobiology spectrum · 2026Article
- Phage Φ170 biocontrol of multidrug-resistantMicrobiology spectrum · 2026Article
- Article
- AFrontiers in microbiology · 2026Article
- Synergy between ciprofloxacin and temperate phages overcomes therapeutic limitations caused by lysogen formation.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Bacteriophages and Their Enzymes: Allies Against Microbial Biofilms.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Article
- Isolation of Lytic Bacteriophages ofVeterinary sciences · 2025Article
- Review
- Phage-mediated TLR2 signaling attenuates intracellular Mycobacterium abscessus survival in macrophages.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Marine Bacteriophages as Next-Generation Therapeutics: Insights into Antimicrobial Potential and Application.Viruses · 2025Review
- Phage-Antibiotic Combinations for Pseudomonas: Successes in the Clinic and In Vitro Tenuously Connected.Microbial biotechnology · 2025Review
- Combined Forces Against Bacteria: Phages and Antibiotics.Health science reports · 2025Article
- Phage-Antibiotic Synergy Enhances Biofilm Eradication and Survival in a Zebrafish Model ofInternational journal of molecular sciences · 2025Article
- The Current Landscape of Phage-Antibiotic Synergistic (PAS) Interactions.Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Phage-antibiotic synergy to combat multidrug resistant strains of Gram-negative ESKAPE pathogens.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Synergistic action of mucoactive drugs and phages againstMicrobiology spectrum · 2025Article
- Re-Emergence of Bacteriophages and Their Products as Antibacterial Agents: An Overview.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Review
79 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The Burkholderia cepacia complex (Bcc) is a group of at least 18 species of Gram-negative opportunistic pathogens that can cause chronic lung infection in cystic fibrosis (CF) patients. Bcc organisms possess high levels of innate antimicrobial resistance, and alternative therapeutic strategies are urgently needed. One proposed alternative treatment is phage therapy, the therapeutic application of bacterial viruses (or bacteriophages). Recently, some phages have been observed to form larger plaques in the presence of sublethal concentrations of certain antibiotics; this effect has been termed phage-antibiotic synergy (PAS). Those reports suggest that some antibiotics stimulate increased production of phages under certain conditions. The aim of this study is to examine PAS in phages that infect Burkholderia cenocepacia strains C6433 and K56-2. Bcc phages KS12 and KS14 were tested for PAS, using 6 antibiotics representing 4 different drug classes. Of the antibiotics tested, the most pronounced effects were observed for meropenem, ciprofloxacin, and tetracycline. When grown with subinhibitory concentrations of these three antibiotics, cells developed a chain-like arrangement, an elongated morphology, and a clustered arrangement, respectively. When treated with progressively higher antibiotic concentrations, both the sizes of plaques and phage titers increased, up to a maximum. B. cenocepacia K56-2-infected Galleria mellonella larvae treated with phage KS12 and low-dose meropenem demonstrated increased survival over controls treated with KS12 or antibiotic alone. These results suggest that antibiotics can be combined with phages to stimulate increased phage production and/or activity and thus improve the efficacy of bacterial killing.
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