Colin Buttimer

University College Cork | UCC · Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre

In recent years, the microbiological safety of powdered infant formula has gained increasing attention due to the identification of contaminating C. sakazakii and its epidemiological link with life-threatening neonatal infections. Current intervention strategies have fallen short of ensuring the production of infant formula that is free from C. sak...

Enterobacteria phage vB_PcaM_CBB is a “jumbo” phage belonging to the family Myoviridae. It possesses highly atypical whisker-like structures along the length of its contractile tail. It has a broad host range with the capability of infecting species of the genera Erwinia, Pectobacterium, and Cronobacter. With a genome of 355,922 bp, excluding a pre...

Losses in crop yields due to disease need to be reduced in order to meet increasing global food demands associated with growth in the human population. There is a well-recognized need to develop new environmentally friendly control strategies to combat bacterial crop disease. Current control measures involving the use of traditional chemicals or an...

Bacteriophages (phages) are viruses that infect bacterial hosts, and since their discovery over a century ago they have been primarily exploited to control bacterial populations and to serve as tools in molecular biology. In this commentary, we highlight recent diverse advances in the field of phage research, going beyond bacterial control using wh...

Bacteriophage (phage) vB_AbaM_ME3 was previously isolated from wastewater effluent using the propagating host Acinetobacter baumannii DSM 30007. The full genome was sequenced, revealing it to be the largest Acinetobacter bacteriophage sequenced to date with a size of 234,900 bp and containing 326 open reading frames (ORFs).

Escherichia coli and Enterococcus faecalis have been implicated as important players in human gut health that have been associated with the onset of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Bacteriophage (phage) therapy has been used for decades to target pathogens as an alternative to antibiotics, but the ability of phage to shape complex bacterial conso...

Bacteriophages (phages) of the genus Kayvirus of Staphylococcus aureus are promising agents for therapeutic applications. In this study, we isolated Kayvirus phages, SAM1 and SAM2, from the Fersisi commercial phage cocktail (George Eliava Institute, Tbilisi, Georgia), which exhibits high sequence homology with phage K (≥94%, BLASTn). We found that...

Eggerthella lenta is an anaerobic, high GC, Gram-positive bacillus commonly found in the human digestive tract that belongs to the class Coriobacteriia of the phylum Actinobacteria. This species has been of increasing interest as an important player in the metabolism of xenobiotics and dietary compounds. However, little is known regarding its susce...

Campylobacter fetus can cause intestinal and systemic disease in humans and are well established veterinary and economic pathogens. We report the complete genomic sequences of two C. fetus subsp. fetus (Cff) isolates recovered in 2017 (CITCf01) and 2018 (CITCf02) from a case of recurrent prosthetic valve endocarditis. Both were capable of growth ae...

Streptococcus pneumoniae is highly pathogenic and causes several mucosal and invasive infections. Due to the rising number of multidrug-resistant (MDR) strains of S. pneumoniae, new antimicrobials with alternative mechanisms of action are urgently needed. In this study, we identified two new Streptococcal phages from the oral microbiome, 23TH and S...

An intestinal epithelium model able to produce mucus was developed to provide an environment suitable for testing the therapeutic activity of gut bacteriophages. We show that Enterococcus faecalis adheres more effectively in the presence of mucus, can invade the intestinal epithelia and is able to translocate after damaging tight junctions. Further...

To date, Certrevirus is one of two genera of bacteriophage (phage), with phages infecting Pectobacterium atrosepticum, an economically important phytopathogen that causes potato blackleg and soft rot disease. This study provides a detailed description of Pectobacterium phage CB7 (vB_PatM_CB7), which specifically infects P. atrosepticum. Host range,...

Campylobacteriosis is the leading cause of human bacterial gastroenteritis, very often associated with poultry consumption. Thermophilic Campylobacter (Campylobacter jejuni and Campylobacter coli) isolates (n = 158) recovered from broiler neck skin and caecal contents in Ireland over a one-year period, resistant to at least one of three clinically...

Increasing levels of bacterial resistance to many common and last resort antibiotics has increased interest in finding new treatments. The low rate of approval of new antibiotics has led to the search for new and alternative antimicrobial compounds. Bacteriophages (phages) are bacterial viruses found in almost every environment. Phage therapy was h...

Approved Taxonomy proposal: Create one new genus (Cbunavirus) including four new species (Caudovirales: Schitoviridae)

Losses in crop yields due to disease need to be reduced to meet increasing global food demands associated with growth in the human population. There is a well-recognised need to develop new environmentally-friendly control strategies to combat bacterial crop diseases. There are several crop diseases for which no effective bactericidal agents are cu...

A presentation that was given at the Oxford Bacteriophage Conference (from PhD work) discussing the isolation and characterisation of Pectobacterium atrosepticum phages and details covering their potential as agents for biocontrol application against their host bacterium.

Pectobacterium atrosepticum is a phytopathogen of economic importance as it is the causative agent of potato blackleg and soft rot. Here we describe the Pectobacterium phage vB_PatP_CB5 (abbreviated as CB5), which specifically infects the bacterium. The bacteriophage is characterized in detail and TEM micrographs indicate that it belongs to the Pod...

Pectobacterium atrosepticum is an economically important phytopathogen that is responsible for potato blackleg and soft rot, and for which current control strategies are limited In this study, stem samples of potato crops exhibiting blackleg were taken from three farms in Co Cork, Ireland, and they were found to be infected with P atrosepticum Thre...

To date, a small number of jumbo myoviruses have been reported to possess atypical whisker-like structures along the surface of their contractile tails. Erwinia amylovora phage vB_EamM_Y3 is another example. It possesses a genome of 261,365 kbp with 333 predicted ORFs. Using a combination of BLASTP, Interproscan and HHpred, about 21% of its putativ...

Pectobacterium atrosepticum is an economically important phytopathogen that is responsible for potato blackleg and soft rot, and for which current control strategies are limited. In this study, stem samples of potato crops exhibiting blackleg were taken from three farms in Co. Cork, Ireland, and they were found to be infected with P. atrosepticum....

The increase in antibiotic resistance in pathogenic bacteria is a public health danger requiring alternative treatment options, and this has led to renewed interest in phage therapy. In this respect, we describe the distinct host ranges of Staphylococcus phage K, and two other K-like phages against 23 isolates, including 21 methicillin-resistant S....

Pectobacterium phage vB_PccM_CBB (CBB) is a jumbo phage belonging to the family of Myoviridae. It possesses a large genome of 355,922 bp containing 554 ORFs with 33 tRNAs genes (4th largest phage genome identified to date). The genome also has predicted terminal repeats of 22,456bp. Protein comparisons show that 33-38% of CBB are homologous to prot...

Jumbo Enterobacteriacea phage CBB was isolated from activated sludge from a waste water treatment facility in Co. Cork, Ireland. Genome and proteome analysis shows that the phage genome (378kb) has homology to other ‘GAP32-like phages’, with transmission electron microscopy analysis showing the phage has atypical whisker-like structures on its tail...

Two bacteriophages of Pectobacterium atrosepticum, a causative agent of potato blackleg disease and soft rot, were isolated from soil obtained from commercial potato farms (in County Cork, Ireland) and characterised.