Understanding How Biopolymers Found in Marine Ecosystems Impact the Efficacy of Bacteriophages against Bacteria

Abstract

Bacteriophages are abundant in Earths ecosystem and serve as valuable mediators in marine environments, regulating bacterial populations in oceans, hot springs, and salterns, among others. However, bacteriophages have high-specificity to their host, thus making it difficult to study bacteria-phage relationships. In this study, we observe whether naturally occurring biopolymers (coral mucin (from Stylophora pistillata), chitin, and sodium alginate) increase bacteriophage affinity to bacteria by recording the plaques formed throughout 15-minute time intervals. We use an isolated E. coli strain and its corresponding T7 phage, as well as isolated bacteria and phage strains from a coral sample (labeled Stylophora pistillata or "Coral 1"). The research conducted plaque assays using minimal media solution to quantify phage-forming units (PFUs) using 2 bacterial forms, Coral 1 and E. coli and Mucin, Sodium Alginate, and Chitin as biopolymers. Our research found that the biopolymers had an effective impact on the generation of PFUs in our bacterial cultures for all samples. While we were unable to conduct future plaque assays, the information we have now is important to discovering ways to increase phage efficiency in marine environments to help maintain nutrient resource levels in such ecosystems.