Isolation, Genomic Characterization of Shigella prophage fPSFA that effectively infects multi-drug resistant Shigella isolates from the Indian Poultry Sector.

Because of uncontrolled use of antibiotics, emergence of multidrug-resistant Shigella species poses a huge potential of zoonotic transfer from poultry sector. With increasing resistance to current antibiotics, there is a critical need to explore antibiotic alternatives. Using a Shigella flexneri reference strain, we isolated a novel fPSFA phage after inducing with mitomycin C. The phage was found to be stable for wide ranges of temperature -20 °C-65 °C and pH 3 to 11. fPSFA shows a latent period that ranges from 20 to 30 min and generation times of 50-60 min. The genome analysis of phage reveals two major contigs of 23788 bp and 23285 bp with 50.16 % and 39.33 % G + C content containing a total of 80 CDS and 2 tRNA genes. The phage belongs to Straboviridae family and lacks any virulence or antimicrobial resistance gene, thus making it a suitable candidate for treatment of drug-resistant infections. To confirm lytic ability of novel phage, we isolated 54 multidrug-resistant Shigella species from thirty-five poultry fecal samples that shows multiple antibiotic resistance index ranging from 0.15 to 0.75 (from 3 Indian states). The fPSFA showed lytic activity against multidrug-resistant Shigella isolates (73.08 %) (MARI≥0.50). The wide host ranges of fPSFA phage demonstrate its potential to be used as a biocontrol agent.