The Use of Bacteriophage in the Fight Against Mastitis
Date
2023-05
Authors
Miller, Annika
Major Professor
Advisor
Peters, Nick
Committee Member
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Abstract
Mastitis is a bacterial infection of the breast tissue, commonly caused by Streptococcus agalactiae, Staphylococcus aureus, and Klebsiella pneumoniae. Antibiotics are typically used as a preventative measure and a treatment for this ailment but renders the milk unusable during the treatment period and can lead to antimicrobial resistance. Bacteriophage, also known as phage, are now being explored as an alternative approach to traditional antibiotic therapies. Phage are extremely strain specific and can be easily administered as a cocktail of several phage types. These qualities can reduce the disruption of normal microflora and diminish the chances for resistance development. We isolated phage that kill the aforementioned bacteria and tested their efficacy at various concentrations. In brief, we filtered soil samples from the Iowa State Soil Farm and cultured samples on agar plates with the target bacteria. When phage killed the bacteria, we isolated the plaques, measured their concentrations, and imaged them using electron microscopy. Subsequently, we ran various efficacy trials and determined the usefulness of each phage type. We also isolated bacteria with potential suppressor mutations against a single phage type and tested our panel of phage against these, the results of which require further investigation. Finally, we tested whether each phage could kill different bacterial species, thereby examining the specificity of host range. We found that the phage did not act like broad-spectrum antibiotics and did not kill any other bacterial species tested. Taken together, these results suggest potential efficiency for phage cocktail treatments of mastitis in a farm setting.
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