AUTHOR=Khan Fazal Mehmood , Gondil Vijay Singh , Li Changchang , Jiang Mengwei , Li Junhua , Yu Junping , Wei Hongping , Yang Hang 

TITLE=A Novel Acinetobacter baumannii Bacteriophage Endolysin LysAB54 With High Antibacterial Activity Against Multiple Gram-Negative Microbes

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology

VOLUME=11

YEAR=2021

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/cellular-and-infection-microbiology/articles/10.3389/fcimb.2021.637313

DOI=10.3389/fcimb.2021.637313

ISSN=2235-2988

ABSTRACT=<p>The rapid spread and emergence of multidrug-resistant <italic>Acinetobacter baumannii</italic> and other pathogenic Gram-negative bacteria spurred scientists and clinicians to look for alternative therapeutic agents to conventional antibiotics. In the present study, an <italic>A. baumannii</italic> bacteriophage p54 was isolated and characterized. Morphological and genome analysis revealed that bacteriophage p54 belongs to Myoviridae family with a genome size of 165,813 bps. A novel endolysin, namely LysAB54, showing low similarity with other well-known related endolysins, was cloned, expressed, and characterized from the bacteriophage p54. LysAB54 showed significant bactericidal activity against multidrug-resistant <italic>A. baumannii</italic> and other Gram-negative bacteria, including <italic>Pseudomonas aeruginosa</italic>, <italic>Klebsiella pneumoniae</italic>, and <italic>Escherichia coli</italic>, in the absence of outer membrane permeabilizers. Based on all those observations, LysAB54 could represent a potential agent for the treatment of multidrug-resistant Gram-negative superbugs.</p>