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ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Evaluation of the effectiveness of etiotropic therapy with linezolid and bacteriophage in a mouse model for staphylococcal infection
1 Lopukhin Federal Research and Clinical Center Of Physical-Chemical Medicine under the Federal Medical Biological Agency, Moscow, Russia
2 State Research Center for Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology, Obolensk, u.d. Serpukhov, Moscow region, Russia
Funding: the work was supported by the Russian Science Foundation grant No. 22-15-00443, https://rscf.ru/project/22-15-00443/
Author contribution: Kornienko MA, Kuzin VV — study planning, data collection and processing, article authoring; Abdraimova NK — data collection and processing, Gorodnichev RB — study planning, data collection and processing; Shitikov EA — study planning, data processing, article authoring.
Compliance with ethical standards: the study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the State Research Center for Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology (Veterinary Minutes #3-2024 of June 10, 2024), performed in accordance with the requirements of Federal Law #61-FZ of 12.04.2010 "On the Circulation of Medicines"; Order #708N of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation of 23.08.2010 "On Approval of the Rules of Laboratory Practice"; SanPiN 3.3686-21 "Sanitary and epidemiological requirements for prevention of infectious diseases."
Staphylococcus aureus is the causative agent of a wide range of infections, including severe systemic diseases, which is often multidrug resistant. Given the growing overall antibiotic resistance, a promising approach to treating staphylococcal infections is administration of bacteriophages, especially in combination with antibiotics. This study aimed to evaluate the synergistic effect of linezolid and bacteriophage vB_SauM-515A1 in combating a systemic infection in BALB/c mice. Using 36 animals, we established the optimal way of administration and the infecting dose of the microorganism (5 × 108 CFU/mouse intravenously), and identified the threshold concentrations of antimicrobial agents for monotherapy. The evaluation was based on the revealed contamination of internal organs (kidneys, spleen) and blood. To learn the etiotropic effect of linezolid (10 mg/kg animal weight) combined with the phage (2 × 107 PFU/mouse), we worked with a control group and a test group, 12 mice in each; 2, 8, 18, and 24 hours after infection, the former received the drug only, the latter — the investigated combination. Combined therapy had a more pronounced effect, decreasing the bacterial load in the kidneys by two to three orders of magnitude compared with monotherapy on the first day of treatment. Thus, the combined use of linezolid and bacteriophages is promising for the treatment of infections caused by S. aureus, and may increase the effectiveness of treatment and reduce the risk of side effects of high-dose antibiotics.
Keywords: multidrug resistance, Staphylococcus aureus, combination therapy, phage therapy, bacteriophages, linezolid, Bacteriophages, synergy between antibiotics and bacteriophages, synergism, mouse model