Isolation of bacteriophage with antimicrobial activity against Shigella Dysenteriae from sewage sample

Abstract

Shigellosis infection, caused by a genus of medically important bacteria called Shigella, results in diarrhea and other painful manifestations in humans. Annually, an estimated 74,000 to 600,000 people die of Shigella infection worldwide. Among the most lethal species of Shigella is Shigella dysenteriae, which produces the Shiga toxin upon infection. As a treatment, several antibiotics are prescribed to the patients suffering from shigellosis. However, recent studies have shown Shigella dysenteriae, along with several other species of bacteria, to have developed resistance against the common antibiotics; and, many of them were multidrug-resistant. In order to counter this problem, widespread research is ongoing in attempts to develop treatments of Shigellosis alternative to antibiotics intake, including phage therapy. Phage therapy is the therapeutic use of bacteriophages in treating bacterial infections. The initial step in the long process of developing successful phage therapy against a particular pathogenic infection is the isolation of phage(s) from the environment. In this study, we have isolated bacteriophages from hospital sewage and confirmed the phages’ antimicrobial activity against ATCC strains of Shigella dysenteriae.