Affiliation:
1. Institute of Molecular Biology
2. Institute of Biochemistry, National Chung Hsing University
3. Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Section, Taichung Veterans General Hospital
4. Center for Research and Development, Chungtai Institute of Health Sciences and Technology, Taichung, Taiwan
Abstract
ABSTRACT
Stenotrophomonas maltophilia
is one of the most prevalent opportunistic bacteria causing nosocomial infections. It has become problematic because most of the isolates are resistant to multiple antibiotics, and therefore, development of phage therapy has attracted strong attention. In this study, eight
S. maltophilia
phages were isolated from clinical samples including patient specimens, catheter-related devices, and wastewater. These phages can be divided into four distinct groups based on host range and digestibility of the phage DNAs with different restriction endonucleases. One of them, designated φSMA5, was further characterized. Electron microscopy showed it resembled
Myoviridae
, with an isometric head (90 nm in diameter), a tail (90 nm long), a baseplate (25 nm wide), and short tail fibers. The φSMA5 double-stranded DNA, refractory to digestion by most restriction enzymes, was tested and estimated to be 250 kb by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis. This genome size is second to that of the largest phage, φKZ of
Pseudomonas aeruginosa
. In sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, 25 virion proteins were visualized. N-terminal sequencing of four of them suggested that each of them might have had its N terminus cleaved off. Among the 87
S. maltophilia
strains collected in this study, only 61 were susceptible to φSMA5, indicating that more phages are needed toward a phage therapy strategy. Since literature search yielded no information about
S. maltophilia
phages, φSMA5 appears to be the first reported.
Publisher
American Society for Microbiology
Subject
Ecology,Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology,Food Science,Biotechnology
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5. Characterization of Six
Leuconostoc fallax
Bacteriophages Isolated from an Industrial Sauerkraut Fermentation