Modulators of phage susceptibility in Staphylococcus aureus

Speaker: Hanne Ingmer (University of Copenhagen)

Host: Heike Brötz-Oesterhelt (CMFI)

Date & Time: 05.02.2026 | 12:30–15:00 p. m.

Venue:  Seminar Room Level 2, M3 Research Center, Otfried-Müller-Straße 37, 72076 Tübingen

Public Event. No registration needed and everyone welcome. The talks are followed by a reception in the GUZ entrance hall.

Abstract:

S. aureus is a serious human pathogen that is prone to become antibiotic resistant and with that being increasingly difficult to treat with antibiotics. This has spurred a search for alternative treatment options and has revitalized previous efforts to use bacterial viruses, the phages, as therapeutics. In phage therapy the major focus is on the lytic phages that are known to infect and kill bacteria without establishing in bacterial genomes as pro-prohages. The killing efficacy of phages is commonly evaluated in laboratory settings with relevant clinical strains as receptors and occasionally, repeated phage infections are needed to develop phages with enhanced lytic properties. In recent times we have studied how changes in gene expression mediated by central regulatory systems in S. aureus affect phage receptors on the bacterial surface and with that efficacy of phage infection. We find that a variety of conditions and factors such as the presence of microbial communities affect phage mediated killing of S. aureus. Given that such conditions are likely to differ between in vitro and in vivo environments, we predict that future success of phage therapy relies on our ability to identify in vivo relevant conditions affecting phage efficacy and to mimic these conditions when establishing phage collections destined for therapy.