Therapeutic potential of bacteriophage isolated From sewage to rescue Escherichia coli infection In Swiss mice (Mus musculus)

Abstract

E. coli is a gram negative enteric bacillus which is the causes of enteritis, urinary tract infection, septicemia and other clinical infections including neonatal meningitis. Moreover, it is also associated with diarrhoea in pet and farm animals. The prevalence of multidrug-resistant E. coli strains is increasing worldwide principally due to the spread of mobile genetic elements, such as plasmids. Therefore, the spread of antibiotic resistance in E. coli is an increasing public health concern in the world. This work has come to study the therapeutic effect of bacteriophages isolated from our environments for promising alternative therapy against E. coli bacterium. Bacteriophages are bacterial viruses ubiquitous in our world in various places including the oceans, soil, deep sea vents, the water we drink, and wastewater and food we eat. Phages have been proposed as natural antimicrobial agents to fight bacterial infections in humans, in animals or in crops of agricultural importance. This study is currently developed to isolate potential phages from sewage samples and use it as a candidate for therapeutic purpose against lethal dose (109) of Escherichia coli infection in Swiss mice. Lytic phage was isolated from wastewater collected from Jimma town following standard enrichment method against the bacterium. Intraperitoneal injections (cells) of E. coli caused death in mice within 5 days. In contrast, subsequent intraperitoneal administration of purified bacteriophages (фJS3) suppressed E. coli induced lethality. Inoculation mice with high-dose of фJS3 alone produced no adverse effects attributable to the phage. These results uphold the efficacy of phage therapy against E. coli infections in mice and suggest that фJS3 phage may be a potential therapeutic alternative to antibiotics in human. Keywords: Phage therapy, Pathogenic, Survivability of mice