Characterization and Genomic Analysis of a Novel Drexlervirial Bacteriophage IME268 with Lytic Activity Against Klebsiella pneumoniae

Amina Nazir; Chunling Qi; Na Shi; Xue Gao; Qiang Feng; Hong Qing; Fei Li; Yigang Tong

doi:10.2147/IDR.S347110

Characterization and Genomic Analysis of a Novel Drexlervirial Bacteriophage IME268 with Lytic Activity Against Klebsiella pneumoniae

Infect Drug Resist. 2022 Apr 5:15:1533-1546. doi: 10.2147/IDR.S347110. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Amina Nazir^{1

2

3}, Chunling Qi⁴, Na Shi⁴, Xue Gao⁴, Qiang Feng⁴, Hong Qing², Fei Li^{3

4}, Yigang Tong³

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Animal Science and Veterinary Medicine, Shandong Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Jinan, Shandong Province, People's Republic of China.
² Key Laboratory of Molecular Medicine and Biotherapy in the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Department of Biology, School of Life Sciences, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, People's Republic of China.
³ College of Life Science and Technology, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing, People's Republic of China.
⁴ Clinical Laboratory Center, The Affiliated Taian City Central Hospital of Qingdao University, Taian, 271000, People's Republic of China.

Abstract

Introduction: Klebsiella pneumoniae, a multidrug resistant bacterium, that causes nosocomial infections including septicemia, pneumonia etc. Bacteriophages are potential antimicrobial agents for the treatment of antibiotic resistant bacteria.

Methods and results: In this study, a novel bacteriophage IME268 was isolated from hospital sewage against clinical multi-drug resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae. Transmission electron microscopy and genomic characterization of this phage exhibited it belongs to the Webervirus genus, Drexlerviridae family. Phage IME268 possessed a double-stranded DNA genome composed of 49,552bp with a GC content of 50.5%. The phage genome encodes 77 open reading frames, out of 44 are hypothetical proteins while 33 had assigned putative functions. No tRNA, virulence related or antibiotic resistance genes were found in phage genome. Comparative genomic analysis showed that phage IME268 has 95% identity with 87% query cover with other phages in NCBI database. Multiplicity of infection, one step growth curve and host range of phage were also measured.

Conclusion: According to findings, Phage IME268 is a promising biological agent that infects Klebsiella pneumoniae and can be used in future phage therapies.

Keywords: Klebsiella pneumoniae; bacteriophage; drug resistant; lytic; therapy.

Grants and funding

This research was supported by Key Project of Beijing University of Chemical Technology (No. XK1803-06), National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2018YFA0903000, 2020YFC2005405, 2020YFA0712100, 2020YFC0840805), Funds for First-class Discipline Construction (No. XK1805), Inner Mongolia Key Research and Development Program (No. 2019ZD006), National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 81672001, 81621005), NSFC-MFST project (China-Mongolia) (No. 31961143024), Fundamental Research Funds for Central Universities (No. BUCTRC201917, BUCTZY2022), and Military Biosecurity Research Program (Grant No. 19SWAQ06).