Analyzing the synergistic effects of plant extracts with bacteriophages against Pseudomonas aeruginosa

Masters Thesis from the year 2020 in the subject Biology - Virology, University of the Punjab, language: English, abstract: By the passage of time the microorganisms that cause diseases become more resistant to antibiotics that are commonly used for treatment of diseases. The Pseudomonas aeruginosa causes nosocomial infections and is resistant to antibiotics due to presence of antibiotic resistance genes in chromosome. For the treatment of diseases caused by Pseudomonas aeruginosa, there is dire need of different alternative therapies to overcome the problem of antibiotic resistance and bacteriophage therapy is one among them. There are certain hurdles the bacteriophage therapy is facing for its acceptance as routine therapy which includes, narrow host range and emergence of phage resistance in bacteria. There are assumptions that bacteriophage therapy might work more effectively by using phages in combination with antibiotics and plant extracts. Pseudomonas aeruginosa uses quorum sensing (management of genetic expression) in reaction to changes in cell concentration. The quorum sensing inhibitors should have the characteristics like stability, nontoxicity, present in small amount and non-degradable. The plant extract that we used was in the crude form and can be used for prevention of bacterial infection. In combination with bacteriophages, plant extract can alter structure of bacterial enzymes and proteins, can increase the flexibility of the membrane and, can also degrade it. Some plant extracts can produce reactive oxygen species (ROS) which leads to death of bacteria. In this study, synergistic effect of both plant extract and bacteriophages was studied to find out how both plant extract and phages reduce the growth of bacteria. Bacterial inhibition was checked in liquid medium as well as on agar plates. Inhibitory effect was shown by all phages, and plant extracts at different levels with mixture of phage RL and RS. With methanol extract of clove indicated hi