HM2-phage resistant solventogenic Clostridium saccharoperbutylacetonicum N1-4 shows increased exopolysaccharide production

Abstract

During the history of the solventogenic clostridia fermentation industry, bacteriophages have been a recurrent problem. This study reports that HM2, a lytic bacteriophage for the solventogenic Clostridium saccharoperbutylacetonicum N1–4 (N1–4), has a genome size of 17,470 bps with 22 ORFs, including replication, lysis, integration and structural modules. To understand the HM2 infection and resistance in N1–4, bacteriophage insensitive mutants (BIMs) were isolated and characterized. These 8 independent BIMs included 4 adsorption-mediated and 4 non-adsorption types. Adsorption-mediated BIMs had increased EPS production and decreased attachment of HM2 to the cell surface. Non-adsorption mediated BIMs had a moderate increase in EPS production, which did not impact HM2 attachment. Absorption-mediated BIMs had reduced fermentation performance whereas the non-absorption mediated BIMs were indistinguishable from N1–4. Consequently, non-adsorption mediated BIMs would be more useful in a fermentation since they couple good fermentation performance with phage resistance.

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