Isolation and Characterization of a phage targeting Acinetobacter baumannii strain AYE
Description
Acinetobacter baumannii is a gram-negative, opportunistic bacterium frequently encountered in nosocomial environments. Immunocompromised patients dependent on indwelling devices or recovering from open surgical wounds are more susceptible to A. baumannii infection, leading to adverse outcomes including ventilator-associated pneumonia and sepsis. Alarmingly, the majority of A. baumannii strains exhibit multi-drug resistant or pan-drug resistant phenotypes, rendering traditional antibiotic therapy ineffective.
An alternative mechanism to antibiotic treatment is phage therapy, where bacteriophages are isolated against specific strains of A. baumannii. We used A. baumannii strain AYE, a clinical isolate from human blood as host to isolate phages to successfully isolate a bacteriophage producing plaques with large halos. A high titer phage stock was also generated. The remainder of our research will be directed towards the characterization of this phage isolate in order to determine its suitability for use in phage therapy. These included assessing the presence of virulence/antibiotic resistance genes and genes involving lysogeny within the phage genome, allowing for phage classification using genome and phage morphology comparisons, determining the host range of the phage, and assessing phage virulence.
While A. baumannii exemplifies the growing global crisis of antimicrobial resistance, phage therapy offers an effective countermeasure to preserve effective treatment options. This research aims to expand on knowledge underlying these treatments and to ultimately provide candidate phage for therapy.
Citation Information
Mei, Victor; Maleehah, Faaizah; and Carruthers, Michael, "Isolation and Characterization of a phage targeting Acinetobacter baumannii strain AYE" (2026). Office of Research DMU Research Symposium. 58.
https://digitalcommons.dmu.edu/researchsymposium/2025rs/2025abstracts/58
Isolation and Characterization of a phage targeting Acinetobacter baumannii strain AYE
Acinetobacter baumannii is a gram-negative, opportunistic bacterium frequently encountered in nosocomial environments. Immunocompromised patients dependent on indwelling devices or recovering from open surgical wounds are more susceptible to A. baumannii infection, leading to adverse outcomes including ventilator-associated pneumonia and sepsis. Alarmingly, the majority of A. baumannii strains exhibit multi-drug resistant or pan-drug resistant phenotypes, rendering traditional antibiotic therapy ineffective.
An alternative mechanism to antibiotic treatment is phage therapy, where bacteriophages are isolated against specific strains of A. baumannii. We used A. baumannii strain AYE, a clinical isolate from human blood as host to isolate phages to successfully isolate a bacteriophage producing plaques with large halos. A high titer phage stock was also generated. The remainder of our research will be directed towards the characterization of this phage isolate in order to determine its suitability for use in phage therapy. These included assessing the presence of virulence/antibiotic resistance genes and genes involving lysogeny within the phage genome, allowing for phage classification using genome and phage morphology comparisons, determining the host range of the phage, and assessing phage virulence.
While A. baumannii exemplifies the growing global crisis of antimicrobial resistance, phage therapy offers an effective countermeasure to preserve effective treatment options. This research aims to expand on knowledge underlying these treatments and to ultimately provide candidate phage for therapy.
