Strains of bacteriophage useful for rescuing patients infected with vancomycin-resistant enterococcus faecium

摘要

The present invention involves the use of specific phages, designated ENB6 and ENB13, that kill many clinical isolates of vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium and of vancomycin-sensitive Enterococcus faecium. The genome of one of the phage strains, ENB6 has been partially sequenced, and is shown to not contain nucleotide sequences for known bacterial virulence genes or for the vancomycin resistance cassette. Its efficacy in rescuing mice from otherwise-fatal bacteremias is documented herein.