Bacteriophages to treat canine skin and ear infections: Isolation and characterization of Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteriophage.
Shivani Ojha 1*, Charlotte Pye 2
- Atlantic Veterinary College
- University of Prince Edward Island
Shivani Ojha, shojha@upei.ca
Bacteriophage therapy, which uses lytic virus as antibacterials, is acknowledged as an alternative treatment option to address the global epidemic of antimicrobial resistance in bacteria. Skin infections and otitis externa caused by Pseudomonas aeruginosa is very common in canine practice. Treatment challenges are significant for the biofilm producer, inherently drug resistant, and now increasingly fluoroquinolones resistant P. aeruginosa infections. In veterinary medicine, success of phage therapy has been shown in livestock animals and in food safety. However, phage therapy is not adequately explored in small animal medicine. This study aims at tackling drug resistant pathogens in canine dermatology. In this study, we have isolated three lytic anti-Pseudomonas bacteriophages from the sewage wastewater using clinical isolates of P. aeruginosa as the propagating host. The characterization of one virulent phage is presented. The biological activity of the phage generates clear, approximately 1 mm lytic zones. The phage has shown high lytic activity against 20 clinical isolates of P. aeruginosa isolated from the pyoderma and otitis cases of canine patients. The in-vitro growth kinetics of P. aeruginosa versus phage displayed an exponential clearing of bacteria in liquid cultures, showing lowest OD600 at 4.5 h. At present, the sequencing of the bacteriophage genome is underway, which will provide further information on its taxonomic placement and characteristics.