Project 457468

The proportion of Canadians suffering from chronic bowel inflammation is alarmingly increasing. One condition, termed "inflammatory bowel disease" (IBD) is particularly debilitating, affecting young and ageing populations. One driver of such inflammation, or "colitis", is the presence of harmful bacteria in the digestive tract. Antibiotics have been previously used, but they are not selective and can cause more problems by disturbing the community of microbes ("microbiota") that inhabits the gut, resulting in secondary infections. Solutions that selectively target these harmful bacterial, while avoiding perturbation of beneficial microbiota, are needed. The solution we propose is to use good viruses known as "bacteriophages" or "phages", which only infect bacteria and not human cells. Phages target specific bacteria and can knock out one type of bacteria in a mixed population while leaving the others intact. In that sense, phages are like guided missiles; they only attack their assigned targets. Previous work in our lab has confirmed that phages do not cause inflammation when present in the digestive tract nor do they impact the healthy bacteria already there. To understand how phages can help cure gut inflammation, we propose investigate their action in a colitis model driven by harmful bacteria isolated from the gut of patients with IBD. The model is directly relevant to human disease, and will provide the basis required to develop phages into an applicable therapeutic treatment for humans who suffer from IBD. The knowledge produced in this project could lead to the development of an effective cure that will directly impact the lives of 270,000 Canadians living with IBD.