O’Flaherty [34] demonstrated the inclusion of phage K in an oil-based cream killed Staphylococcus aureus on agar and in broth cultures. Thus, a phage-containing hand cream could reduce pathogenic bacteria [34]. However, that study did not report on the stability

of phages in the cream or on the exact degree of the bactericidal effect achieved. If a phage-containing cream were feasible for infection control, this approach would likely reduce the transmission of MDRAB from the hands of health-care personnel to patients in ICUs. The first lytic phage shown to specifically infect MDRAB was characterized in 2010 [35] and belonged to the Podoviridae family, with a broad host range amongst MDRAB strains. This is the only known phage capable of

infecting A. baumannii ATCC17978, whose genome has been fully sequenced [35]. In addition, ϕAB2 can rapidly adsorb to #Everolimus randurls[1|1|,|CHEM1|]# its Selleckchem Rapamycin host and has a large burst size [35]. These advantages make ϕAB2 a good model phage for controlling the prevalence of nosocomial infections caused by MDRAB. To our knowledge, most biocontrol studies have focused on using phages as food decontaminants [21, 23, 26, 36, 37]. The application of a phage as a disinfectant agent for the control of MDRAB has not been previously reported. Consequently, this study aimed to evaluate the ability of ϕAB2 phage to reduce MDRAB in suspension and on experimentally-contaminated glass surfaces. In addition, the ability of ϕAB2 in a paraffin oil-based lotion or glycerol to reduce the number of viable MDRAB was determined. The stability of ϕAB2 under different environments (temperature, pH, chloroform, and glass surface) was also evaluated. Results Adsorption and one-step growth curve of ϕAB2 ϕAB2 rapidly was adsorbed onto both A. baumannii M3237 and CHIR 99021 A. baumannii ATCC 17978 (Figure 1). Within 5 min, greater than 95% of the phage particles were adsorbed to A. baumannii

M3237 and A. baumannii ATCC 17978, and nearly 100% were adsorbed by 10 min. Figure 1 Adsorption of ϕ AB2 to A. baumannii M3237 and A. baumannii ATCC 17978. Approximately 95% of the phage particles were adsorbed onto the cells at 5 min and 100% were adsorbed at 10 min post-infection. Effect of temperature on ϕAB2 stability Figure 2A shows the stability of ϕAB2 stored in deionized water at −20°C, 4°C, and 25°C, over 360 days. When the phages were stored in deionized water at −20°C, 25°C, and 4°C for 360 days they retained 0.6%, 1.0%, and 66.0% of infectivity, respectively. Although ϕAB2 had infectivity retention of more than 50% when stored in deionized water after 360 days at 4°C, infectivity retention of more than 50% was only observed up to 220 days in samples stored at −20°C or 25°C. The effect of refreezing on phage survival demonstrated that ϕAB2 was unstable when the sample was frozen repeatedly, as greater than 99.