Immobilization of Bacteriophages in Ex Tempore Hydrogel for the Treatment of Burn Wound Infection.

The resistance of bacteria to antibiotics is a major problem for anti-bacterial therapy. This problem may be solved by using bacteriophages-viruses that can attack and destroy bacteria, including antibiotic-resistant ones. In this article, the authors compared the efficacy of topical bacteriophage therapy and systemic antibiotic therapy in the treatment of wound infections caused by ESKAPE pathogens in patients with limited (less than 5% of the body surface) full-thickness burns. Patients in the study group (n = 30) were treated with PVA-based hydrogel dressings saturated ex tempore with a bacteriophage suspension characterized by its lytic activity against the bacteria colonizing the wound. Patients in the control group (n = 30) were treated using etiotropic systemic antibiotic therapy, and the wounds were covered with gauze bandages soaked in an aqueous solution of povidone-iodine. An assessment of the decrease in the level of bacterial contamination of the recipient wounds in both groups was conducted after 7 days, and after that, free skin grafting was performed. On day 14 after free skin grafting, patients in both groups underwent incisional biopsy. The study group demonstrated an increase in the indices of proliferative activity (Ki-67), and angiogenesis (CD-31, VEGF) in the area of engraftment of the split-thickness skin grafts. The results indicate that PVA-based hydrogel wound dressings can be used as bacteriophage carriers for local antimicrobial therapy ahead of free skin grafting.

16S rRNA gene sequencing data of the upper respiratory tract microbiome in the SARS-CoV-2 infected patients.

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is a big challenge for humanity. The COVID-19 severity differs significantly from patient to patient, and it is important to study the factors protecting from severe forms of the disease. Respiratory microbiota may influence the patient's susceptibility to infection and disease severity due to its ability to modulate the immune system response of the host organism. This data article describes the microbiome dataset from the upper respiratory tract of SARS-CoV-2 positive patients from Russia. This dataset reports the microbial community profile of 335 human nasopharyngeal swabs collected between 2020-05 and 2021-03 during the first and the second epidemic waves. Samples were collected from both inpatients and outpatients in 4 cities of the Russian Federation (Moscow, Kazan, Irkutsk, Nizhny Novgorod) and sequenced using the 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing of V3-V4 region. Data contains information about the patient such as age, sex, hospitalization status, percent of damaged lung tissue, oxygen saturation (SpO2), respiratory rate, need for supplemental oxygen, chest computer tomography severity score, SARS-CoV-2 lineage, and also information about smoking and comorbidities. The amplicon sequencing data were deposited at NCBI SRA as BioProject PRJNA751478.