Isolation and partial characterization of two bacteriophages virulent to Enterobacter cloacae

Abstract EN

Enterobacter cloacae is a potential bacterial pathogens in aquatic water .

In this study, two lytic phages designated as Ec02 and Ec03 infectious to Enterobacter cloacae were isolated from agricultural irrigation water.

Morphological analysis by transmission electron microscopy revealed that both phages belongs to Myoviridae family.

Phage Eco2 had an isometric head 92 nm in diameter with a long contractile tail 125 nm in length, while phage Ec03 had a head of about 75 nm in diameter with a long contractile tail 92 nm in length.

Both phages were shown to be virulent to different Enterobacter sp isolates except Enterobacter aerogenes (57), and had no effect on other tested bacteria.

One- step growth curves revealed that the latent period, rise periods and burst size of phages Ec02 and Ec03 were (20, 20 min) , (30,40 min) and (146, 94 PFU/ infected cell), respectively .

Both phages were thermal stable and were tolerant to a wide range of pH.

These results suggest that both phages have a high potential for phage application to control Enterobacter cloacae.