Method for Isolation of Bacteroides Bacteriophage Host Strains Suitable for Tracking Sources of Fecal Pollution in Water

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Payan, A. | Ebdon, J. | Taylor, H. | Gantzer, C. | Ottoson, J. | Papageorgiou, G. | Blanch, Anicet R. | Lucena, F. | Jofre, J. | Muniesa, M.

Edité par CCSD ; American Society for Microbiology -

International audience. Bacteriophages infecting Bacteroides are potentially a good tool for fecal source tracking, but different Bacteroides host strains are needed for different geographic areas. A feasible method for isolating Bacteroides host strains for phages present in human fecal material is described. Useful strains were identified for application in Spain and the United Kingdom. One strain, GA-17, identified as Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron, was tested in several locations in Europe with excellent performance in Southern Europe.Microbial source tracking methods are designed to enable researchers to uncover the sources of fecal pollution in a water body (19). Bacteriophages infecting Bacteroides are potential tools for microbial source tracking (4, 13, 22, 24, 26, 29). However, it is well documented that Bacteroides host strains vary in their ability to discriminate between phages of different sources but also that phage detection by a given host strain varies geographically. Thus, Bacteroides fragilis strain HSP40 detects good numbers of phages in different areas of the Mediterranean region (4, 9, 10, 28, 29, 30) and in South Africa (12), but it fails to detect significant numbers of phages in Northern Europe (22) and the United States (15). In contrast, other strains, such as RYC 2056, detect similar numbers of phages in different geographical areas but do not discriminate between the sources of fecal pollution (5, 7, 18, 22). Strains tested in the United States to date appear to behave like RYC 2056 (15).Limitations of existing source tracking methods (19, 24, 25, 26, 27), combined with the good source tracking performance of strain HSP40 in certain geographical areas (4, 9, 12, 28, 30), along with increasing information about the specificity between the animal host and the bacteria of the Bacteroides group (11, 32) and the narrow host ranges reported for phages infecting Bacteroides (6, 8, 16, 22, 30), prompted our search for new Bacteroides host strains.We describe here a rapid method for isolating and further testing Bacteroides host strains potentially useful for source tracking.

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