Untapped Wealth from Newly Characterized Pseudomonas Podophages: Sources of Enzybiotics, Molecular Tools, and Phage Therapy Candidates
Jorrico Suelto II*, Edelca Panisales, Timothy Mendoza, Ron Leonard Dy
- National Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology
- University of the Philippines Diliman
Jorrico Suelto II [jdsuelto@up.edu.ph]
Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a ubiquitous and opportunistic bacteria known to inhabit diverse environments and has been frequently associated with multidrug-resistant infections in immunocompromised individuals. In nature, bacteriophages serve as the natural predators of P. aeruginosa and growing interest in phages has risen over the years not only for their potential to combat antimicrobial resistance but also to serve as tools for studying P. aeruginosa which serves a model for understanding the development of bacterial defenses against antimicrobials and phages. The study isolated and characterized 20 phages. Four were selected for sequencing and further analysis revealed that 3 phages belonged to genus Jamesmcgillvirus and 1 phage belongs to genus Kochitakasuvirus. All 4 phages contained lysis genes which could be further isolated for use in endolysin therapy while 2 were observed to exhibit lysogenic properties indicating the presence of integrases or recombinases which could be used for genome engineering. The other 2 non-lysogenic phages could become potential candidates for phage therapy, however, further characterization is required since majority of the genes in all 4 phages have unknown identities and functions which is due to the Jamesmcgillvirus and Kochitakasuvirus genera being understudied. There were also interesting observations which require further investigation like the presence of a photosystem D2 gene in one of the isolates that may indicate a much broader host range or some evolutionary consequences of phage-host interactions. Furthermore, some isolates produced multilayered plaque morphologies which are not typically observed indicating unknown phage-host interactions that is worth examining. Altogether, the findings reveal a wealth of enzymes and other genes that may be utilized for various applications.