Morphological characterization and biocontrol effects of Vibrio vulnificus phages against Vibriosis in the shrimp aquaculture environment.

The re-emerging field of phage therapy is the potential biocontrol agents for the transfer of virulence factor and to kill their bacterial hosts. In this study, the lytic Vibrio vulnificus phages were studied to provide a better understanding of phage-host interactions and development of phage therapy. Four new V. vulnificus phages were detected from shrimp aquaculture system, named VV1, VV2, VV3 and VV4. All lytic V. vulnificus phages are the Tectiviruses of the family Tectiviridae with typical double layered elongated icosahedral head and tailless morphology. Lytic V. vulnificus phages which infect other Vibrio isolates were further characterized by long term storage, enzymes treatment, organic solvents treatment, detergents treatment, pH stability, temperature stability, agar bioassay method and one-step growth experiment. The effects of chloroform, acetone, ethyl alcohol, methyl alcohol, ribonuclease (RNase), trypsin, protease, Triton-X100 treatments were not affected the growth of VV1, VV2, VV3 and VV4 phages. These phages (VV1-VV4) were inactivated completely with temperature (over 60 °C), pH (<3 or >12), lysozyme and sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) treatment. One-step growth experiments indicated that the latent period was at 3 h and burst size was at 37 °C. Agar bioassay method indicated that the percentage of inhibition was 75% (VV1) and 70% (VV2, VV3 & VV4), respectively. SDS-PAGE analysis of all V. vulnificus phages had similar protein patterns with molecular weight masses of 260, 249, 204, 148, 63, 59, 22 and 15 kDa. Hence, it could be concluded that V. vulnificus phage had a broad lytic spectrum and potential biocontrol of luminous Vibriosis in the shrimp aquaculture system.