Diversity of <i>Salmonella enterica</i> phages isolated from chicken farms in Kenya
Bibliographic record
Abstract
ABSTRACT In this study, we describe the characterization of 67 Salmonella enterica phages isolated from Kenya. Specifically, the phages were isolated from chicken feces as well as from swabs and water samples obtained from chicken farms and slaughterhouses in Nairobi and Kiambu counties. Genome sequencing and analysis revealed that 59 phage isolates were distinct and could be grouped into 17 clusters belonging to four major types of phages (MT1–4). Further taxonomic analysis showed that each MT represents one phage genus. Of the 17 selected representative genomes (one per cluster), seven phages belong to the MT1 group and to the genus Jerseyvirus . The MT2 cluster contained eight representative phages that were similar to Escherichia phage T5 and belong to the Tequintavirus genus. The unique MT3 cluster with one phage representative belongs to the Zindervirus genus, while the sole MT4 phage isolate is a member of the Dhillonvirus genus. All representative phages are siphophages, except MT3 phage which is a podophage. All genomes do not contain genes associated with lysogeny and therefore, they are considered exclusively lytic. No known virulence genes or antibiotic resistance genes were detected in any of the genomes. Phage DNA termini analyses showed that MT2 phages have a direct terminal repeat-based packaging mechanism while MT1 has a headful packaging mechanism. Host range studies showed that phages belonging to MT1 and MT3 appear to only infect Salmonella strains, while MT2 and MT4 phages were also capable of infecting Escherichia and Shigella strains. IMPORTANCE Non-typhoidal Salmonella enterica infections are one of the leading causes of diarrhoeal diseases that spread to humans from animal sources such as poultry. Hence, keeping poultry farms free of Salmonella is essential for consumer safety and for a better yield of animal products. However, the emergence of antibiotic resistance due to over usage has sped up the search for alternative biocontrol methods such as the use of bacteriophages. Isolation and characterization of novel bacteriophages are key to adapt phage-based biocontrol applications. Here, we isolated and characterized Salmonella phages from samples collected at chicken farms and slaughterhouses in Kenya. The genomic characterization of these phage isolates revealed that they belong to four ICTV (International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses) phage genera. All these phages are lytic and possibly suitable for biocontrol applications because no lysogenic genes or virulence factors were found in their genomes. Hence, we recommend further studies on these phages for their applications in Salmonella biocontrol.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; both teacher heads agree on what is shown here.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".