Bacteriophages Against Pathogenic Bacteria: In Medicine and Agriculture

One of the critical issues that humans worldwide are facing is bacterial infections. Antibiotics were developed as bactericidal agents to avoid the negative consequences of bacterial infections, and they were initially highly efficient against bacteria. However, we face a phenomenon called antibiotic resistance by misusing these chemical antibiotics in this era. In other words, bacteria began to acquire resistance to common antibiotics, and resistance means going back to a time before antibiotics. As it is a significant threat to human health and causes increased mortality, there is a rising demand for novel alternative therapies. An alternate method is to use bacteriophages (phages) as a therapeutic agent against bacterial infections in medicine and agriculture. Phages are viruses capable of infecting pathogenic bacteria, which can cause serious diseases. They do not affect the human microbiota; most only infect certain bacteria. Some research has been done on using phages as a treatment, and more experiments today. For instance, eye infections caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) can be treated by eye drops containing appropriate phages. In this regard, significant progress has been made in phage therapy. This review will discuss the current state of phage therapy, clinical breakthroughs, its superiorities and drawbacks, and the future perspectives of phage applications.