Isolation and Characterization of <i>Lactobacillus brevis</i> Phages
2019
Marine Feyereisen | Jennifer Mahony | Gabriele A. Lugli | Marco Ventura | Horst Neve | Charles M. A. P. Franz | Jean-Paul Noben | Tadhg O’Sullivan | Douwe van Sinderen
<i>Lactobacillus brevis</i> has been widely used in industry for fermentation purposes. However, it is also associated with the spoilage of foods and beverages, in particular, beer. There is an increasing demand for natural food preservation methods, and in this context, bacteriophages possess the potential to control such spoilage bacteria. Just a few studies on phages infecting <i>Lactobacillus brevis</i> have been performed to date and in the present study, we report the isolation and characterization of five virulent phages capable of infecting <i>Lb. brevis</i> strains. The analysis reveals a high diversity among the isolates, with members belonging to both, the <i>Myoviridae</i> and <i>Siphoviridae</i> families. One isolate, designated phage 3-521, possesses a genome of 140.8 kb, thus representing the largest <i>Lb. brevis</i> phage genome sequenced to date. While the isolated phages do not propagate on <i>Lb. brevis</i> beer-spoiling strains, phages showed activity against these strains, impairing the growth of some <i>Lb. brevis</i> strains. The results highlight the potential of bacteriophage-based treatments as an effective approach to prevent bacterial spoilage of beer.
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