Food Science and Biotechnology

, Volume 25, Issue 3, pp 935–940 | Cite as

Synergistic antimicrobial activity of bacteriophages and antibiotics against Staphylococcus aureus

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Abstract

This study was designed to assess the synergistic antimicrobial effect of phages combined with antibiotics against Staphylococcus aureus. The phage-antibiotic synergy (PAS) effect was evaluated using the fractional inhibitory concentration (FIC) and flow cytometric analysis. The determined minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values varied from 0.125 to 128 μg/mL for S. aureus KACC 13236 (SAS) and from 0.25 to >256 μg/mL for S. aureus CCARM 3080 (SAR). The PAS effect was more pronounced in SAS treated with phage SA11 in the presence of cefoxitin (FIC=0.62), chloramphenicol (FIC=0.54), and polymyxin B (FIC=0.38). SAS and SAR cells were injured when exposed to asublethal concentration of ciprofloxacin, whereas these cells were highly susceptible to the phage-antibiotic combined treatment, showing 96% of relative percentages of injured and dead cells. The results suggest that the combined treatment of phages and antibiotics can be used to improve antimicrobial efficacy against antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Keywords

phage-antibiotic synergy fractional inhibitory concentration Staphylococcus aureus antibiotic resistance bacteriophage 
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Copyright information

© The Korean Society of Food Science and Technology and Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of Food Science and Nutrition, Zhejiang Key Laboratory for Agro-Food ProcessingZhejiang UniversityHangzhou, ZhejiangChina
  2. 2.Department of Medical Biomaterials Engineering and Institute of Bioscience and BiotechnologyKangwon National UniversityChuncheon, GangwonKorea

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