Recently it has been recognized that bacteriophages, the natural predators of bacteria can be used efficiently in modern biotechnology. They have been proposed as alternatives to antibiotics for many antibiotic resistant bacterial strains. Phages can be used as biocontrol agents in agriculture and petroleum industry. Moreover phages are used as vehicles for vaccines both DNA and protein, for the detection of pathogenic bacterial strain, as display system for many proteins and antibodies. Bacteriophages are diverse group of viruses which are easily manipulated and therefore they have potential uses in biotechnology, research, and therapeutics. The aim of this review article is to enable the wide range of researchers, scientists, and biotechnologist who are putting phages into practice, to accelerate the progress and development in the field of biotechnology.

Biofilm is involved in many serious consequences for public health and is a major virulence factor contributing to the chronicity of infections. The aim of the current study was to isolate and characterize a bacteriophage that inhibit multi-drug resistant Klebsiella pneumonia (M) in palnktonic form as well as biofilm. This phage designated as bacteriophage Z was isolated from waste water. Its adsorption rate to its host bacterium was significantly enhanced by MgCl2 and CaCl2. It has a wide range of pH and heat stability. From its one step growth, latent time and burst size was determined that were 24 min and about 320 virions per cell, respectively. As analyzed by transmission electron microscopy, phage Z had a head of width (76±10 nm) and length of (92±14 nm) with an icosahedrons' sides of 38 nm with a non- contractile (200±15 nm) long and (14-29 nm) wide tail belonging to family Siphoviridae of order Caudovirales. Six structural proteins ranging from 18 to 65 kDa were revealed by sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE). Its genome was found to be comprised of double stranded DNA with approximate size of 36 kb. Bacteria were grown in suspension and as biofilms to compare the susceptibility of both phenotypes to the phage lytic action. Phage Z was effective in reducing biofilm biomass after 24 h and 48 h and showed more than 2-fold and 3-fold reductions, respectively. Biofilm cells and stationary phase planktonic bacteria were killed at a lower rate than the log-phase planktonic bacteria.

Bacterial pathogens that infect patients also contaminate hospital surfaces. These contaminants impact hospital infection control and epidemiology, prompting quantitative examination of their transmission dynamics. Here we investigate spatiotemporal and phylogenetic relationships of multidrug resistant (MDR) bacteria on intensive care unit surfaces from two hospitals in the United States (US) and Pakistan collected over one year. MDR bacteria isolated from 3.3% and 86.7% of US and Pakistani surfaces, respectively, include common nosocomial pathogens, rare opportunistic pathogens, and novel taxa. Common nosocomial isolates are dominated by single lineages of different clones, are phenotypically MDR, and have high resistance gene burdens. Many resistance genes (e.g., bla_NDM, bla_OXA carbapenamases), are shared by multiple species and flanked by mobilization elements. We identify Acinetobacter baumannii and Enterococcus faecium co-association on multiple surfaces, and demonstrate these species establish synergistic biofilms in vitro. Our results highlight substantial MDR pathogen burdens in hospital built-environments, provide evidence for spatiotemporal-dependent transmission, and demonstrate potential mechanisms for multi-species surface persistence.