Synergistic interaction between antibiotics and phages against different species of Enterococcus.

This study focused on finding co-operativity between phages and antibiotics against various strains of vancomycin resistant E. faecalis and E. faecium. We specifically looked for a synergistic interaction between phages and antibiotics that affected the bacterial growth over 18 hours of co-cultivation in liquid medium. The successful combinations of phage and antibiotic synergy were identified based on the comparison of percentage reduction of bacterial growth in the presence of both antibiotic and phage versus either phage or antibiotic only. Furthermore, RNA sequencing was performed on the bacterial samples isolated from these synergy interactions. The goal of RNA sequencing was to understand the molecular mechanism underpinning these synergistic interactions.