Abstract
BackgroundAcinetobacter baumannii has emerged as one of the most important hospital-acquired pathogens in the world, because of its resistance to almost all available antibiotic drugs. Endolysins from phages are attracting increasing interest as potential antimicrobial agents, especially for drug-resistant bacteria. We previously isolated and characterized Abp1, a virulent phage targeting the multidrug-resistant A. baumannii strain, AB1.MethodsTo evaluate the antimicrobial potential of endolysin from the Abp1 phage, the endolysin gene plyAB1 was cloned and over-expressed in Escherichia coli, and the lytic activity of the recombinant protein (PlyAB1) was tested by turbidity assessment and bacteria counting assays.ResultsPlyAB1 exhibits a marked lytic activity against A. baumannii AB1, as shown by a decrease in the number of live bacteria following treatment with the enzyme. Moreover, PlyAB1 displayed a highly specific lytic effect against all of the 48 hospital-derived pandrug-resistant A. baumannii isolates that were tested. These isolates were shown to belong to different ST clones by multilocus sequence typing.ConclusionsThe results presented here show that PlyAB1 has potential as an antibiotic against drug-resistant A. baumannii.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12879-014-0681-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
Acinetobacter baumannii has emerged as one of the most important hospital-acquired pathogens in the world, because of its resistance to almost all available antibiotic drugs
pandrug-resistant A. baumannii (PDRAB) refers to isolates that are resistant to all available anti-A. baumannii antimicrobial agents, except for polymyxins [2]
Through a series of functional assays, we have shown that PlyAB1 exhibited significant antibacterial activity against all 48 PDRAB isolates collected from the Southwest Hospital of Chongqing, China
Summary
Acinetobacter baumannii has emerged as one of the most important hospital-acquired pathogens in the world, because of its resistance to almost all available antibiotic drugs. Endolysins from phages are attracting increasing interest as potential antimicrobial agents, especially for drug-resistant bacteria. We previously isolated and characterized Abp, a virulent phage targeting the multidrug-resistant A. baumannii strain, AB1. A. baumannii has become the focus of significant attention worldwide, because of its ability to rapidly develop antibiotic resistance. This has led to the emergence of multidrug-resistant A. baumannii (MDRAB) and pandrug-resistant A. baumannii (PDRAB), within a few decades. PDRAB refers to isolates that are resistant to all available anti-A. baumannii antimicrobial agents, except for polymyxins [2].
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