ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Phage Biology
Isolation and Characterization of Novel Lytic Bacteriophages against (Fluoro)quinolone Resistant Campylobacter strains
Provisionally accepted
Yuran Elías Calancha-Padrón1
Dayana Pérez-Condori1
Marcelo Fernando Gutierrez-Valverde1,2
Daniel Martín Salas-Veizaga1
Karin Hjort2*
Maria Teresa Álvarez-Aliaga1- 1Área de Bioquímica Molecular, Instituto de Investigaciones Fármaco Bioquímicas, Universidad Mayor de San Andrés, La Paz, Bolivia
- 2Uppsala universitetet Institutionen for medicinsk biokemi och mikrobiologi, Uppsala, Sweden
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Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has become a global concern for public health, particularly in developing countries where antibiotics are overused and misused. In Bolivia, the indiscriminate use of antibiotics, including (fluoro-)quinolones, has led to the proliferation of multidrug-resistant (MDR) Campylobacter spp., increasing the risk of resistance gene dissemination to other bacteria, deepening the AMR problem. In order to mitigate the proliferation of MDR bacteria, bacteriophages can be a valuable treatment complement to antibiotics. In the present study, we isolated and characterized 3 novel lytic bacteriophages with activity towards (fluoro-)quinolone resistant Campylobacter isolates and C. jejuni strains. The isolated bacteriophages: BMBo_CjP_006, BMBo_CjP_007, and BMBo_CjP_009 belong to the class Caudoviricetes and have a linear double-stranded DNA genome. The genome sizes of the bacteriophages were between 59-77 kb with a GC-content between 42 to 46%. The 90, 144 and 146 predicted coding sequences (CDSs) for the different bacteriophages did not encode any antibiotic resistance, virulence, or lysogenic-associated genes, confirming their genetic safety and lytic nature. The isolated bacteriophages showed a narrow host range and lytic activity against 9 (fluoro-)quinolone resistant Campylobacter spp., including C. jejuni with a variation in lytic activity from MOI 0.1 to 100 dependent on bacteriophage and host isolate. In addition, the bacteriophages were stable at a pH range between 4 to 10 and a temperature range of -20 °C to 70 °C. These characteristics make them interesting for biotechnological applications due to their lytic activity and lack of resistance and virulence genes, as well as their potential for product preservation.
Keywords: Bacteriophages, Campylobacter spp., antimicrobial resistance, (Fluoro-)Quinolone resistance, Lytic activity
Received: 10 Oct 2025; Accepted: 24 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Calancha-Padrón, Pérez-Condori, Gutierrez-Valverde, Salas-Veizaga, Hjort and Álvarez-Aliaga. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Karin Hjort
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