Open Life Sciences (Jan 2016)
Isolation and characterization of lytic phages TSE1-3 against Enterobacter cloacae
Abstract
The emergence of antibiotic resistant bacterial pathogens is becoming a major challenge for patient care. The utilization of alternative therapies for infectious diseases other than antibiotics is an urgent need of today medical practice. The utilization of lytic bacteriophages and their gene products as therapeutic agents against antibiotic resistant bacteria is one of the convincing alternative approaches. Here we present the isolation and characterization of three lytic bacteriophages TSE1-3 against Enterobacter cloacae from sewage effluent. The isolates maintained antibacterial activity for 10 hours of incubation followed by the development of phage resistance. Their stability at different temperatures and pH, established their possible application in phage therapy. The highest activity of the phages was observed at 37°C and pH 7.0, while they gave lytic activity up to 60°C. The latent period of all the TSE phages was 20 minutes, while the burst size was 360 for TSE1, 270 for TSE2 and 311 for TSE3. The phages were harboring double-stranded DNA larger than 12kb in size. Further research into the phages genome and proteins, animal experiments, delivery parameters and clinical trials may lead to their utilization in phage therapy.
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