Investigating the development of phage resistance against Clostridium perfringens in vitro

Abstract

In conclusion, this work sought to identify the susceptibility profiles of 5 host strains (APHA 1, APHA2, APHA3, APHA4, and APHA5) against 3 phage strains (8D2, 15D2, and 41U5) isolated from infected chickens in Denmark and the United States. The 41U5 strain was found to possess the maximum lytic activity as it was able to lyse all strains used in the study. The 15D2 strain showed lytic activity against 3 host strains and the 8D2 strain showed lytic activity against 2 host strains. This indicates that both phage and host strains have a lot of specificity and they need to be extensively characterized before they can be employed for therapeutic use. This specificity may be due to genomic, molecular, and environmental factors, and therefore, future studies need to concentrate on characterizing these factors so that phage therapy can become more common in clinical use. Our study has demonstrated the differences in specificity of the 3 different phage strains employed; however, further studies need to focus on the lytic mechanisms of these phages so that their use in therapeutics can become a reality.