MacLachlan, Aileen; Berges, Bradford (Brigham Young University)
Faculty Advisor: Berges, Bradford (Life Sciences, Microbiology and Molecular Biology)
Staphylococcus Aureus (SA) is a well-known human pathogen causing infection in hospital settings world-wide. Given that SA is becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotics, the need to discover alternative treatments is urgent. One path that SA uses to combat antibiotics is by forming biofilms. Biofilms are microbial cell communities that form on surfaces and employ a complex extracellular polysaccharide matrix to protect the bacteria. In the past, bacteriophage (phage) has been investigated as a potential alternative to treat methicillin-resistant SA (MRSA) and break down its biofilm. Recently, students from Dr. Berges' laboratory isolated 6 novel strains of phage. In a recently published paper from Dr. Berges' lab, these phages demonstrated significant reduction of planktonic strains of SA and MRSA.
In this project, we further explore the ability of these 6 phages in breaking down biofilms from hospital associated SA strains. We plan to measure the reduction of SA biofilms caused by these novel phages against a control. The reduction results will be analyzed with previous research results to detect the presence of a polysaccharide degrading enzyme for the purpose of future research. In addition, we also plan on measuring the ability of the phage in preventing biofilm formation.