Isolation and characterization of a bacteriophage specific for the lipopolysaccharide of rough derivatives of Pseudomonas aeruginosa strain PAO.

A lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-defective (rough) mutant of Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO was isolated by selection for resistance to the LPS-specific phage E79. The LPS of this mutant, AK-1012, lacked the O-antigenic side chain-specific amino sugar fucosamine as well as the core-specific sugars glucose and rhamnose. Using this strain, we isolated and characterized a phage, phi PLS27, which is specifically inactivated upon incubation with LPS extracted from rough mutants of P. aeruginosa PAO. phi PLS27 was found to be a Bradley type C phage and was very similar to coliphage T7 in a number of properties, including size, buoyant density, mass, and the number of structural proteins.