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  • Real-time assessment of bac...
    Tkhilaishvili, Tamta; Di Luca, Mariagrazia; Abbandonato, Gerardo; Maiolo, Elena Maryka; Klatt, Ann-Brit; Reuter, Monika; Möncke-Buchner, Elisabeth; Trampuz, Andrej

    Research in microbiology, November 2018, 2018-Nov, 2018-11-00, 20181101, Volume: 169, Issue: 9
    Journal Article

    Bacterial biofilms, highly resistant to the conventional antimicrobial therapy, remain an unresolved challenge pressing the medical community to investigate new and alternative strategies to fight chronic implant-associated infections. Recently, strictly lytic bacteriophages have been revalued as powerful agents to kill antibiotic-resistant bacteria even in biofilm. Here, the interaction of T3 bacteriophage and planktonic and biofilm Escherichia coli TG1, respectively, was evaluated using isothermal microcalorimetry. Microcalorimetry is a non-invasive and highly sensitive technique measuring growth-related heat production of microorganisms in real-time. Planktonic and biofilm E. coli TG1 were exposed to different titers of T3 bacteriophage, ranging from 102 to 107 PFU/ml. The incubation of T3 with E. coli TG1 showed a strong inhibition of heat production both in planktonic and biofilm already at lower bacteriophage titers (103 PFU/ml). This method could be used to screen and evaluate the antimicrobial potential of different bacteriophages, alone and in combination with antibiotics in order to improve the treatment success of biofilm-associated infections.