Wiggledon: Isolation of a Microbacteriophage from Oklahoma Soil

Abstract

A bacteriophage is a virus that infects and replicates within a bacterium. Due to the increase in drug-resistant bacteria, more research is being done on using phages for targeting various bacterial pathogens. This research provides valuable information regarding the isolation, amplification, and characterization of microbacteriophage Wiggledon. Wiggledon was isolated using Microbacterium foliorum as the host. The soil used for isolating phage was collected from a red wiggler worm farm in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (35°29’6”N 97°35’29”W). The soil was then enriched with the host bacteria to amplify the virus. The phage was purified and amplified using multiple serial dilutions, spot plating, and webbed plate assays. The purified phage lysate was used for transmission electron microscopy, and its DNA was extracted using Promega Wizard DNA Clean-Up Kit method. In the future, we plan on sequencing the phage DNA using Illumina technology and annotating our phage genome using DNA Master. Here we report the isolation, amplification, and characterization of microbacteriophage, Wiggledon from Oklahoma soil. This study will help to expand the knowledge of bacteriophages in Oklahoma soil.