ISSN: 0973-7510

E-ISSN: 2581-690X

Open Access

Mamdouh M. Esmat1, Ahmed G. Abdelhamid2, Sabah A. Abo-ELmaaty2, Mohamed A. Nasr-Eldin2, Mervat G. Hassan2, Abeer A. Khattab2 and Ahmed Esmael2

1Medical Microbiology and Immunology Department, Faculty of Medicine, Sohag University, Sohag, Egypt.
2Botany Department, Faculty of Science, Benha University,Qalubiya Governorate, 13511, Egypt.
J Pure Appl Microbiol. 2017;11(4):1749-1755
https://doi.org/10.22207/JPAM.11.4.13 | © The Author(s). 2017
Received: 03/10/2017 | Accepted: 09/11/2017 | Published: 31/12/2017
Abstract

Escherichia coli is considered one of the most frequent causative agents of common bacterial infections worldwide.  In addition, effective treatment and prevention measures are still in demand due to the rise of antibiotic resistance and the emergence of new virulent strains.  In this work, we evaluated antibiotics and bacteriophages as interventions for controlling pathogenic E. coli.  A total of 15 E. coli isolates were included in this study. The automated identification system, namely Vitek 2, has been utilized for the identification. Antibiotics susceptibility profiles of all isolates were confirmed by disc diffusion method.  All strains exhibited resistance at least to one antibiotic (ampicillin) while 13 strains were resistant to Ampicillin/Sulbactam, Cefazolin, and Ceftriaxone. Except for two strains, no resistance to Amikacin was observed. On the other hand, bacteriophages designated øEU-3 and øEU-4 were isolated by single plaque isolation and investigated as antimicrobial agents against pathogenic E. coli. Phages morphology, determined by transmission electron microscopy, revealed a structure comprised of a head diameter (71.42 nm) and a tail length (214.28 nm). These features placed the øEU-3 phage in the family Siphoviridae while øEU-4 belonged to family Myoviridae with a head diameter (66.6 nm) and a contractile tail length (108.3nm). Phages susceptibilities were determined by spot test to fifteen E. coli isolates. Coliphage øEU-3 and øEU-4 had narrow host range. This work described the efficacy of antibiotics and bacteriophages as intervention strategies to control pathogenic E. coli and paved the way for depth studies to broaden the antimicrobial spectrum of øEU-3 and øEU-4 phages.

Keywords

Escherichia coli, Antibiotic resistance, Coliphage, Siphoviridae, Myoviridae.

Article Metrics

Article View: 2075

Share This Article

© The Author(s) 2017. Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License which permits unrestricted use, sharing, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.