VIENNA, Jan. 29 Certain bacteriophages, a type of virus that infects bacteria, can boost the effectiveness of antibiotics, according to a University of Vienna study.Steven Hagens, previously at the University of Vienna, says that certain bacteriophages can boost the effectiveness of antibiotics gentamicin, gramicidin or tetracycline.It is the phages' ability to channel through bacterial cell membranes that boosts antibiotic effectiveness. Pseudomonas bacteria for example are particularly multi-resistant to antibiotics because they have efflux pump mechanisms that enable them to throw out antibiotics, says Hagens. A pore in the cell wall would obviously cancel the efflux effect.Pseudomonas bacteria cause pneumonia and are a common cause of hospital-acquired infections.Experiments in mice revealed that 75 percent of those infected with a lethal dose of Pseudomonas survived if the antibiotic gentamicin was administered in the presence of bacteriophages, according to the study published in Microbial Drug Resistance.The bacteriophage approach would also be particularly useful for treating cases of food poisoning, because the lower doses of antibiotic needed would not disrupt the friendly bacteria in the gut -- a big problem with conventional antibiotic treatments.Copyright 2007 by UPI
