Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Aug;131(2):695-705.
doi: 10.1111/jam.14997. Epub 2021 Jan 23.

Isolation, characterization and genomic analysis of vB-AhyM-AP1, a lytic bacteriophage infecting Aeromonas hydrophila

B Pallavi  1 , T G Puneeth  1 , M Shekar  1 , S K Girisha  1
Affiliations

Isolation, characterization and genomic analysis of vB-AhyM-AP1, a lytic bacteriophage infecting Aeromonas hydrophila

B Pallavi et al. J Appl Microbiol. 2021 Aug.

Abstract

Aims: Aeromonas hydrophila is a zoonotic pathogen displaying resistance to multiple antibiotics. Here, we aim to develop a candidate biocontrol agent against A. hydrophila.

Methods and results: In this study, we isolated and characterized the phage vB-AhyM-AP1 from sewage. It showed lytic activity against A. hydrophila strains. One-step growth curve revealed that the latent period lasted for 40 min. The burst size of one lytic cycle was 1413 PFU per infected cell. Temperature stability studies showed that the phage vB-AhyM-AP1 was active over temperatures ranging from 4 to 45°C for 1 h. pH stability studies indicated that the phage remained active within a pH range of 5-10 after 24 h of incubation. Stability tests in salt solutions showed that the phage was stable at salinities ranging from 0·1 to 2%. The phage also showed stabilities in organic solvents when incubated for 10 min. The Illumina Hiseq sequencing of its genome indicated that the phage vB-AhyM-AP1was a jumbo phage with a genome size of 2, 54 490 bp and GC content of 40·3%. The phylogenetic analysis of the terminase large subunit and major capsid protein indicated that the phage closely clustered with other Tevenvirinae phages. The genome encoded 455 ORFs and 22 tRNAs. The phage resulted in a reduction of 0·8 log units of viable A. hydrophila cells in biofilms grown on PVC coupons maintained in a low nutrient medium for 10 days.

Conclusions: The phage showed lytic activity against planktonic and biofilm cells of A. hydrophila. Genome-based prediction showed it to be a strictly lytic phage without any virulence or antibiotic resistance genes indicating safety for environmental and clinical applications.

Significance and impact of the study: The multidrug-resistant strains of A. hydrophila pose a significant health risk to both cultured fishes and consumers leaving few options for treatment. Phage vB-AhyM-AP1 may be used as a candidate biocontrol agent against A. hydrophila strains.

Keywords: Aeromonas hydrophila; Myoviridae; biocontrol; biofilm; genome; lytic phage.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Abedon, S.T. and Culler, R.R. (2007) Optimizing bacteriophage plaque fecundity. J Theor Biol 249, 582-592.
    1. Adams, M.H. (1959) Bacteriophages. New York: Interscience Publishers Inc.
    1. Babraham Bioinformatics (2007) Babraham Bioinformatics - FastQC a quality control tool for high throughput sequence data. https://www.bioinformatics.babraham.ac.uk/projects/fastqc/
    1. Bankevich, A., Nurk, S., Antipov, D., Gurevich, A.A., Dvorkin, M., Kulikov, A.S., Lesin, V.M., Nikolenko, S.I. et al. (2012) SPAdes: a new genome assembly algorithm and its applications to single-cell sequencing. J Comput Biol 19, 455-477.
    1. Cann, A. (2001) Principles of Molecular Virology, p 339. Cambridge, MA: Academic Press.