Isolation of Four Lytic Phages Infecting Klebsiella pneumoniae K22 Clinical Isolates from Spain

The emergence of multi-drug-resistant bacteria represents a major public-health threat. Phages constitute a promising alternative to chemical antibiotics due to their high host specificity, abundance in nature, and evolvability. However, phage host specificity means that highly diverse bacterial spe...

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Detalhes bibliográficos
Autores: Domingo-Calap P, Beamud B, Vienne J, González-Candelas F, Sanjuán R
Formato: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2020
País:España
Recursos:Fundación para el Fomento de la Investigación Sanitaria y Biomédica de la Comunitat Valenciana (FISABIO)
Repositorio:r-FISABIO. Repositorio Institucional de Producción Científica
OAI Identifier:oai:fisabio.fundanetsuite.com:p5548
Acesso em linha:https://fisabio.portalinvestigacion.com/publicaciones/5548
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palavra-chave:Klebsiella pneumoniae
bacteriophage
phage therapy
Descrição
Resumo:The emergence of multi-drug-resistant bacteria represents a major public-health threat. Phages constitute a promising alternative to chemical antibiotics due to their high host specificity, abundance in nature, and evolvability. However, phage host specificity means that highly diverse bacterial species are particularly difficult to target for phage therapy. This is the case of Klebsiella pneumoniae, which presents a hypervariable extracellular matrix capsule exhibiting dozens of variants. Here, we report four novel phages infecting K. pneumoniae capsular type K22 which were isolated from environmental samples in Valencia, Spain. Full genome sequencing showed that these phages belong to the Podoviridae family and encode putative depolymerases that allow digestion of specific K22 K. pneumoniae capsules. Our results confirm the capsular type-specificity of K. pneumoniae phages, as indicated by their narrow infectivity in a panel of K. pneumoniae clinical isolates. Nonetheless, this work represents a step forward in the characterization of phage diversity, which may culminate in the future use of large panels of phages for typing and/or for combating multi-drug-resistant K. pneumoniae.