Green sea turtles are endangered herbivorous hindgut fermenters that contribute to a variety of marine ecosystems. In turtle hospitals, weakened turtles are often rehabilitated. Since the precise diagnosis of a disease is difficult, broad-spectrum antibiotics are routinely used as a general treatment, potentially causing collateral damage to the patient’s gut microbiome. Here, we evaluated the concept of using bacteriophages (phages) to eliminate targeted gut bacteria as an alternative to a broad-spectrum antibiotic (enrofloxacin) in clinically healthy, captive green sea turtles. Additionally, the influence of a broad-spectrum antibiotic (enrofloxacin) and phage therapy on the gut bacterial communities of green sea turtles was investigated. Gut bacterial communities in fecal samples were analyzed by sequencing the V1-V3 regions of the bacterial 16S rRNA. Bacteria-specific phage cocktails (P < 0.05) significantly reduced targeted Acinetobacter in phage-treated turtles during therapy. Compared to the control, no significant difference in bacterial diversity and composition was observed in phage-treated turtles. In contrast, bacterial diversity in antibiotic-treated turtles was significantly (P < 0.05) reduced on day 15 and throughout the entire trial. The change in the bacterial microbiota of turtles treated with antibiotics was largely due to an increase in the abundance of Gram-positive Firmicutes and a simultaneous decrease in Gram-negative Bacteroidetes, Proteobacteria, and Verrucomicrobia. Additionally, we observed that the relative abundance of several bacteria at lower taxonomic levels was much less affected by phages than by antibiotics. These data provide proof of concept for phage therapy to manipulate both transient and indigenous bacterial flora in gut-related dysbiosis of turtles. <\/p>\n
Source:
\nMd. Shamim Ahasan, Robert Kinobe, Lisa Elliott, Leigh Owens, Jenni Scott, Jacqueline Picard, Roger Huerlimann, Ellen Ariel <\/p>\n
Bacteriophage versus antibiotic therapy on gut bacterial communities of the green sea turtle Chelonia mydas<\/p>\n
Environmental Microbiology (2019), first published: April 29, 2019,
\nhttps:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1111\/1462-2920.14644<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Green sea turtles are endangered herbivorous hindgut fermenters that contribute to a variety of marine ecosystems. In turtle hospitals, weakened turtles are often rehabilitated. Since the precise diagnosis of a disease is difficult, broad-spectrum antibiotics are routinely used as a general treatment, potentially causing collateral damage to the patient’s gut microbiome. Here, we evaluated the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8122,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[253],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bacteriophages"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.phage.help\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/carapace-1851102_1280.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phage.help\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phage.help\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phage.help\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phage.help\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phage.help\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.phage.help\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phage.help\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phage.help\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phage.help\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phage.help\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}