Establishment of a new bacteriophage set for typing avian staphylococci.

A new phage set was proposed for the typing of coagulase-positive staphylococci from chickens. The set was composed of 16 phages isolated from lysogenic staphylococci from chickens and 3 adapted phages derived from the international phage set. These phages were classified into 4 groups (I, II, III and IV) according to their host ranges. The 19 phages were used for typing 569 coagulase-positive staphylococci; 94.2% of the isolates were lysed by 1 or more phages, 88.0% at a routine test dilution, and 6.25% only at a routine test dilution X 100. The reacting ability of the phages seemed to be limited to staphylococci from chickens. It was proved that the phages were more accurate than the international phage set in typing staphylococci isolated from chicken in Japan.