Levantamento de bacteriofagos liticos : isolamento e caracterização de virus provenientes de esgoto comum com potencial aplicação antimicrobiana / Survey of lytic bacteriophages: isolation and characterizatio of virus proceeding from raw sewage with potential antimicrobial application

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2006

RESUMO

Bacteriophages, viruses that infect prokaryotic hosts, are the most numerous biological entities of the world. Their abundance implied in reviews in several areas of knowledge, like genetics, evolution and ecology, and phages are now recognized as important vectors in the flux of matter, energy and information in natural environments. However, there is a huge difference between the estimated number of bacteriophages in the world (more than 1030 viral particles) and the quantity described in the literature (around 5300 samples). This restricted sampling reflects in complications to studies of viral diversity and demonstrates our limited knowledge regarding these viruses. Furthermore, the emergence of bacteria resistant to multiple antibiotics implies in a need for new therapeutical approaches, and phages represent an alternative worthy of additional studies. As being so, our purpose in this study was to isolate, from raw sewage, and to biologically characterize lytic bacteriophages, intending to extend these viruses? sampling and to select possible new therapeutic agents. Characterization involved morphological, genetic and host range analysis. The adapted protocols for isolation and characterization permitted the analysis of more than 20 bacteriophages, all belonging to the Caudovirales order, as well as a tentative taxonomic classification of the samples. Other distinctive results include the isolation of three bacteriophages against Chromobacterium violaceum, previously unknown in the literature, as well as the study about the susceptibility of this organism to several isolated phages. Moreover, biological assays suggested further studies about the application of one of these phages, named Shfl1, in the treatment of Shigella flexneri infections in humans, but were uncertain about the potential of the same virus to restrain this pathogen during sewage processing

ASSUNTO(S)

bacteriofago isolation caracterização biologica virus - isolamento bacteriophage biological characterization viruses

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