Abstract
Non-typhoidal Salmonella present a major threat to animal and human health as food-borne infectious agents. We characterized 91 bacterial isolates from Armenia and Georgia in detail, using a suite of assays including conventional microbiological methods, determining antimicrobial susceptibility profiles, matrix assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight (MALDI-TOF) mass spectrometry, serotyping (using the White-Kauffmann-Le Minor scheme) and genotyping (repetitive element sequence-based PCR (rep-PCR)). No less than 61.5% of the isolates were shown to be multidrug-resistant. A new antimicrobial treatment strategy is urgently needed. Phage therapy, the therapeutic use of (bacterio-) phages, the bacterial viruses, to treat bacterial infections, is increasingly put forward as an additional tool for combatting antibiotic resistant infections. Therefore, we used this representative set of well-characterized Salmonella isolates to analyze the therapeutic potential of eleven single phages and selected phage cocktails from the bacteriophage collection of the Eliava Institute (Georgia). All isolates were shown to be susceptible to at least one of the tested phage clones or their combinations. In addition, genome sequencing of these phages revealed them as members of existing phage genera (Felixounavirus, Seunavirus, Viunavirus and Tequintavirus) and did not show genome-based counter indications towards their applicability against non-typhoidal Salmonella in a phage therapy or in an agro-food setting.
Highlights
Food and water-borne diseases represent a growing public health problem worldwide, in both animals and humans
A total of 116 bacterial isolates were collected from non-antibiotic-treated patients with presumed salmonellosis in three different countries (Section 2.1)
Identification on the species level could not be done by MALDI-TOF and serological testing identified at least 86 of the isolates as S. enterica subsp. enterica
Summary
Food and water-borne diseases represent a growing public health problem worldwide, in both animals and humans. An increasing number of people are at risk of foodborne bacterial infections, often causing severe or even fatal diarrheal diseases, with 550 million people getting ill annually, including 220 million children under the age of five [1]. Salmonella is one of the main causative agents of food-borne infections. This ubiquitous and increasingly antibiotic-resistant bacterium [2] can survive several weeks in dry environments and several months in water. While a typical Salmonella infection can be resolved without medical treatment, severe cases can have a lethal outcome in the absence of adequate antibiotic treatment.
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