The spread of various pathogenic microorganisms has brought serious economic problems to cattle farms, and the emergence of more and more broad-spectrum drug-resistant bacteria has made phages gradually replace antibiotics as more potential pathogen control agents. In order to promote the application of phage therapy in cattle husbandry and advance the progress of phage-related research, Creative Biolabs provides reliable, comprehensive and cutting-edge development services for phage therapy in cattle for our customers around the world.
Bacteriophages are a series of bacterial-hosted virus populations, which have a relatively narrow specific recognition range and can self-proliferate after delivery to produce better pathogen-inhibiting capabilities. The vast majority of phage therapy used in the cattle industry uses phages that are lytic and can directly break down bacterial peptidoglycan via endolysins and kill the host directly. There are two practical applications of phage therapy in cattle breeding, one is to control the pathogenic bacteria in animal populations and the spread of bacterial infectious diseases, and the other is to control the colony of bacteria in beef and dairy products to avoid food poisoning or zoonotic infection.
Staphylococcus is a facultative anaerobic Gram-positive bacteria, dozens of Staphylococcus have been found and identified. The most common pathogenic bacteria species in cattle farms is Staphylococcus aureus. S. aureus mainly hosts the mammalian glands of cows and spreads between infected animals. Infection cause mastitis and seriously compromise the yield and safety of dairy products. Several phages have been confirmed to have the ability to kill or control S. aureus strains, such as CS1, DW2, and MSA6 which directly lyse to kill bacteria, or ΦH5 and ΦA72 that inhibit strain growth through lysogenic reactions.
Fig.1 Inhibitory effect of phage cocktail on Staphylococcus aureus. (Titze, 2020)
Escherichia coli is one of the most important causes of food-borne infections. It not only threatens the quality of milk and dairy products but also contaminates other products such as beef. Most E. coli are harmless, but virulent O157 strains or multidrug-resistant O26, O45, O103, O111, O121 and O145 strains also exist. E. coli infection usually causes enteritis, diarrhea, urinary tract infection, or meningitis. Rogue phage vB_EcoS_Rogue1 and E. coli phage JK06 have been reported to effectively inhibit and kill certain strains of E. coli.
Brucella is an important zoonotic pathogen that is carried for life in animals after infection, and there is currently no effective immunotherapy. Bovine brucellosis caused by Brucella can cause miscarriage, infertility, orchitis, and weakness in newborn calves in affected animals. Several bacteriophage lysates have demonstrated potent killing ability against Brucella in vitro and are potential antibacterial agents.
Fig. 2 ELISpot assay for Brucellosis in cows. (Saxena, 2018)
To help address the enormous threat to agriculture and livestock from a variety of pathogens, Creative Biolabs offers novel phage therapy in animal health development services, including phage engineering, phage isolation and enrichment, phage identification and characterization, and phage resistance assay. In addition, we also test the lethality of your phage against specific pathogenic bacteria and the resistance of bacteria to its antagonists through a series of in vitro and in vivo validation methods. Please do not hesitate to contact us for more information or click the links below:
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