ABSTRACT
Bacterial resistance to commonly used antibiotics is one of the major challenges to be solved today. Bacteriophage endolysins (Lysins) have become a hot research topic as a new class of antibacterial agents. They have promising applications in bacterial infection prevention and control in multiple fields, such as livestock and poultry farming, food safety, clinical medicine and pathogen detection. However, many phage endolysins display low bactericidal activities, short half-life and narrow lytic spectrums. Therefore, some methods have been used to improve the enzyme properties (bactericidal activity, lysis spectrum, stability and targeting the substrate, etc) of bacteriophage endolysins, including deletion or addition of domains, DNA mutagenesis, chimerization of domains, fusion to the membrane-penetrating peptides, fusion with domains targeting outer membrane transport systems, encapsulation, the usage of outer membrane permeabilizers. In this review, research progress on the strategies for improving their enzyme properties are systematically presented, with a view to provide references for the development of lysins with excellent performances.
Subject(s)
Anti-Bacterial Agents , Bacteriophages , Endopeptidases , Bacteriophages/enzymology , Bacteriophages/genetics , Endopeptidases/metabolism , Endopeptidases/chemistry , Endopeptidases/genetics , Endopeptidases/pharmacology , Anti-Bacterial Agents/pharmacology , Anti-Bacterial Agents/metabolism , Anti-Bacterial Agents/chemistry , Viral Proteins/metabolism , Viral Proteins/genetics , Viral Proteins/chemistry , Bacteria/enzymology , Bacteria/drug effects , Bacteria/virology , Protein Engineering/methods , Enzyme StabilityABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE To isolate Acinetobacter bacteriophages and analyze their lysis spectrum.METHODS A total of 78 Acinetobacter strains were isolated from the sewage of different sources whose lysis spectrum was determined by method of single layer plates.RESULTS From them only two kinds of Acinetobacter bacteriophages AB46 and AB54 with different lysis spectrum were isolated from 2 strains.The former had a lysis spectrum of 46(1.28%)and the latter had a lysis spectrum of 54,57,59,60,62,69,70 and 78(10.27%).CONCLUSIONS Acinetobacter bacteriophages are isolated and their lysis spectrums are obtained.The lysis spectrums are narrow which need to improve their lysis ranges but they can infect their hosts virulently and form transparent plaques.
