title: Effective inhibition of lytic development of bacteriophages lambda, P1 and T4 by starvation of their host, Escherichia coli.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Bacteriophage infections of bacterial cultures cause serious problems in genetic engineering and biotechnology. They are dangerous not only because of direct effects on the currently infected cultures, i.e. their devastation, but also due to a high probability of spreading the phage progeny throughout a whole laboratory or plant, which causes a real danger for further cultivations. Therefore, a simple method for quick inhibition of phage development after detection of bacterial culture infection should be very useful.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Here, we demonstrate that depletion of a carbon source from the culture medium, which provokes starvation of bacterial cells, results in rapid inhibition of lytic development of three Escherichia coli phages, lambda, P1 and T4. Since the effect was similar for three different phages, it seems that it may be a general phenomenon. Moreover, similar effects were observed in flask cultures and in chemostats.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Bacteriophage lytic development can be inhibited efficiently by carbon source limitation in bacterial cultures. Thus, if bacteriophage contamination is detected, starvation procedures may be recommended to alleviate deleterious effects of phage infection on the culture. We believe that this strategy, in combination with the use of automated and sensitive bacteriophage biosensors, may be employed in the fermentation laboratory practice to control phage outbreaks in bioprocesses more effectively.
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular Biology, University of Gdańsk, Kładki 24, 80-822 Gdańsk, Poland. mlos@biotech.ug.gda.pl
authors.forename: Marcin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Łoś
authors.forename: Piotr
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Golec
authors.forename: Joanna M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Łoś
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Weglewska-Jurkiewicz
authors.forename: Agata
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Czyz
authors.forename: Alicja
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Wegrzyn
authors.forename: Grzegorz
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Wegrzyn
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Neubauer
mesh_terms: D001435:Bacteriophages / Q000254:growth & development*; D019149:Bioreactors / Q000382:microbiology* / Q000821:virology*; D018929:Cell Culture Techniques / Q000379:methods*; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000502:physiology* / Q000821:virology*; D005947:Glucose / Q000378:metabolism*; D014775:Virus Activation / Q000502:physiology
chemical_list: D005947:Glucose