The present invention relates to bacteriophage therapy. More particularly, the present invention relates to novel bacteriophages having a high specificity against Staphylococcus aureus strains, their manufacture, components thereof, compositions comprising the same and the uses thereof in phage therapy and as companion diagnostic.

Disclosed herein are compositions and methods for modifying a bacterial population. In some embodiments, described herein is a bacteriophage comprising a first nucleic acid sequence encoding a first spacer sequence or a crRNA transcribed therefrom, wherein the first spacer sequence is complementary to a target nucleotide sequence from a target gene in a target bacterium, provided that the bacteriophage is rendered lytic.

One aspect of the invention provides a method of generating bacteriophages adapted to infect a target bacterial strain. The method comprises: providing host bacteria that are susceptible to phage as input to a host chemostat containing phage; providing target bacteria that are related to the host bacteria, but not susceptible to phage as input to a target chemostat containing phage; filtering outflows from the host chemostat and the target chemostat to isolate phage from the populations of the host bacteria, the target bacteria, and macromolecules; combining the outflows; and introducing the combined outflow into each of the host chemostat and the target chemostat.

The present disclosure includes methods and systems of detecting bacteria in a sample using phage-functionalized sensors, methods of enriching a sample with phage-functionalized magnetic particles, phage-functionalized magnetic particles and methods of making phage-functionalized magnetic particles.

The present invention relates to a Myoviridae bacteriophage Esc-CHP-2 that is isolated from the nature and can kill specifically enteropathogenic E. coli strains, which has a genome represented by the nucleotide sequence of SEQ. ID. NO: 1 (Accession NO: KCTC 12661BP), and a method for preventing and treating the infections of enteropathogenic E. coli using the composition comprising said bacteriophage as an active ingredient.

The present invention relates to a Myoviridae bacteriophage Esc-COP-4 that is isolated from the nature and can kill specifically enteroinvasive E. coli strains, which has a genome represented by the nucleotide sequence of SEQ. ID. NO: 1 (Accession NO: KCTC 12663BP), and a method for preventing and treating the infections of enteroinvasive E. coli using the composition comprising said bacteriophage as an active ingredient.

Disclosed herein is an engineered bacteriophage comprising an indicator gene, wherein said indicator gene is an RNA aptamer or a green fluorescent protein (GFP) or GFP-like protein, and further wherein said indicator gene can indicate the presence of a microorganism, such as a bacterial infection. The engineered bacteriophage can be capable of infecting and killing the microorganism. The engineered microorganism can be in a composition for delivery to a subject, and can be in hyaluronic acid, for example. Also disclosed are methods of using the engineered bacteriophage to diagnose and/or treat a subject with a bacterial infection.

The presence of microorganisms in or on food can lead to, for example, disease, damage (loss of food), a shortening of shelf life, premature ripening, reduced yield, spoilage and/or rotting. Microbial contamination of food also represents a potential health risk, increasing the likelihood of food poisoning and the like. This disclosure provides methods, uses and compositions which may be exploited as a means to reduce or eliminate the presence of microorganisms on or in food and in turn, the various problems associated therewith. Provided is a method of decontaminating food or a food growing medium, substrate or compost of one or more microorganisms, said method comprising contacting the food and/or the food growing medium, substrate or compost with one or more phage.

This disclosure describes bacteriophages that may be used to improve the selective isolation of Campylobacter from foods or to control antibiotic-resistant bacteria, or both. This disclosure further describes methods of using those bacteriophages.

A modified bacteriophage capable of infecting a plurality of different target bacteria, which bacteriophage includes a toxin gene encoding a toxin protein which is toxic to the target bacteria; wherein the bacteriophage is lytic; and wherein the bacteriophage expresses host range determinant proteins which have a plurality of bacterial host specificities.