Efficacy of lytic phage cocktails on staphylococcus aureus and pseudomonas aeruginosa in mixed-species planktonic cultures and biofilms

Legesse Garedew Kifelew, Morgyn S. Warner, Sandra Morales, Nicky Thomas, David L. Gordon, James G. Mitchell, Peter G. Speck

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

18 Citations (Scopus)
23 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

The efficacy of phages in multispecies infections has been poorly examined. The in vitro lytic efficacies of phage cocktails AB-SA01, AB-PA01, which target Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, respectively, and their combination against their hosts were evaluated in S. aureus and P. aeruginosa mixed-species planktonic and biofilm cultures. Green fluorescent protein (GFP)-labelled P. aeruginosa PAO1 and mCherry-labelled S. aureus KUB7 laboratory strains and clinical isolates were used as target bacteria. During real-time monitoring using fluorescence spectrophotometry, the density of mCherry S. aureus KUB7 and GFP P. aeruginosa PAO1 significantly decreased when treated by their respective phage cocktail, a mixture of phage cocktails, and gentamicin. The decrease in bacterial density measured by relative fluorescence strongly associated with the decline in bacterial cell counts. This microplate-based mixed-species culture treatment monitoring through spectrophotometry combine reproducibility, rapidity, and ease of management. It is amenable to high-throughput screening for phage cocktail efficacy evaluation. Each phage cocktail, the combination of the two phage cocktails, and tetracycline produced significant biofilm biomass reduction in mixed-species biofilms. This study result shows that these phage cocktails lyse their hosts in the presence of non-susceptible bacteria. These data support the use of phage cocktails therapy in infections with multiple bacterial species.

Original languageEnglish
Article number559
Number of pages16
JournalViruses
Volume12
Issue number5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 18 May 2020

Bibliographical note

© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Keywords

  • Biofilm
  • Efficacy
  • Fluorescence
  • Mixed-species culture
  • Phage cocktail therapy
  • Planktonic culture
  • Pseudomonas aeruginosa
  • Staphylococcus aureus

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