Isolation of bacteriophages specific to Escherichia coli isolated from wild and agricultural animals

Bacteriophages are viruses that have evolved to specifically infect one species of bacteria only. The ability of bacteriophages to infect host Escherichia coli (E. coli) isolated from the same and different animal faeces was assessed in order to determine the potential host range across which bacteriophages might be effective.

The project ties in to other bacteriophage and quorum-sensing projects undertaken in the same time frame:
• Antibiotic resistance profiling of Escherichia coli isolated from wild and agricultural animals
• NanobacterphageSERS

The project aims are

• to isolate bacteriophages from the faeces of specific agricultural and wild animal populations.
• to isolate host E. coli from the same animal species as the bacteriophages.
• to determine the potential for bacteriophages recovered from the faeces of one species to demonstrate lytic activity against E. coli recovered from biologically and spatially distinct animal populations.

To date, bacteriophages have been recovered from the pooled faeces of goats, sheep and pigs. All three of these bacteriophages demonstrate lytic activity against host E. coli isolated from their own and other host animal species.