Successful Treatment of Experimental Escherichia coli Infections in Mice Using Phage: its General Superiority over Antibiotics
Smith, H. Williams and Huggins, M. B.,, 128, 307-318 (1982),
doi = https://doi.org/10.1099/00221287-128-2-307,
publicationName = Microbiology Society,
issn = 1350-0872,
abstract= SUMMARY: Anti-K1 phages were more active in vitro and in vivo against an O18:K1:H7 ColV+ Escherichia coli strain, designated MW, than were other phages. A single intramuscular dose of one anti-K 1 phage was more effective than multiple intramuscular doses of tetracycline, ampicillin, chloramphenicol, or trimethoprim plus sulphafurazole in curing mice of a potentially lethal intramuscularly or intracerebrally induced infection of MW; it was at least as effective as multiple intramuscular doses of streptomycin. When MW and the phage were inoculated into different gastrocnemius muscles of the same mice, a rapid reduction in numbers of MW organisms occurred in the MW-inoculated muscle and in other tissues; the numbers of phage particles in the MW-inoculated muscle increased rapidly and greatly. MW failed to proliferate in the brains of intracerebrally infected mice that had been inoculated intramuscularly with the phage at the same time; many more phage particles were found in the brains of these mice than in other sites. The few phage-resistant mutants of MW found in the phage-treated mice were K1−; previous studies had shown such mutants to be of greatly reduced virulence. The phage administered intramuscularly 3–5 d before challenge with a potentially lethal intramuscularly induced infection of MW was protective, the protective effect varying between phage propagated on different bacterial strains.,
language=,
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