Current Microbiology, Vol.70, No.6, 786-791, 2015
Isolation and Characterization of T7-Like Lytic Bacteriophages Infecting Multidrug Resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa Isolated from Egypt
In this study, two lytic phages designated as I center dot PSZ1 and I center dot PSZ2 infecting multidrug resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa were isolated from sewage samples collected in Zagazig, Egypt. Morphological analysis by transmission electron microscopy revealed that both phages belong to the podoviridae family and resembles typical T7-like phages. I center dot PSZ1 has a head of about 60 +/- A 5 nm in diameter with a short tail of 19 +/- A 2 nm in length, while I center dot PSZ2 has a head of about 57 +/- A 5 nm in diameter with a short tail of 14 +/- A 2 nm in length. Both phages were shown to be able to infect 13 different P. aeruginosa strains and has no effect on other tested bacteria. In spite of morphological similarity, these phages showed diverged genomic sequences revealed by restriction enzyme digestion analysis. One-step growth curves of bacteriophages revealed eclipse and latent periods of 12 min for I center dot PSZ1 and 15 min for I center dot PSZ2, respectively, with burst sizes of about 100 per infected cell. Phage treatment prevented the growth of P. aeruginosa for up to 18 h with multiplicity of infection ratios of 1. These results suggest that both phages have a high potential for phage application to control P. aeruginosa.