POSSIBLE CLASSIFICATION OF RAPIDLY GROWING MYCOBACTERIA ON THE BASIS OF THEIR PHAGE SUSCEPTIBILITY

Abstract

Several bacteriophages isolated at the Borstel Research Institute and found active against mycobacteria proved to be of considerable value in the classification of rapidly growing mycobacteria. Some mycobacteriophage preparations were species specific on isolation, some others lysed initially several mycobacterial species. The latter could, however, be rendered specific by serial passages on identical host strains. Electron micrographs showed that the studied mycobacteriophages consist of a hexagonal head and a cylindrical tail. The efficiency of a phage-classifying system for rapidly growing mycobacteria could be established by correlating phage-susceptibility with the amidase spectrum of the same organisms, since the amidase activity of rapidly growing mycobacteria is a stable inherent character of each species. On screening all available rapidly growing mycobacteria for phage-susceptibility, a lysogenic strain of Mycobacterium smegmatis (isolated from a patient) could be detected. The temperate phage, accounted for by the lysogeny of this strain, is a narrow-spectrum smegmatis phage. Problems of phage specificity and broadness of spectrum in correlation with the efficiency of classification of bacteria by means of bacteriophages will be discussed also.