Bacteriophage: Biocontrol agents for food borne diseases

Bacteriophages are the viruses that infect the bacterial cells and play an important role in shaping and maintaining the microbial diversity on planet earth. The ability of phages to infect a specific type of host has opened a new paradigm for exploring their applications in various areas including food, medicine, agriculture etc. Food borne pathogens is a global threat for the food industry and also for the human health. A large number of disease outbreaks all over the world are related to food contamination and various international agencies has published large amount of data showing the risk posed by food borne pathogens to humans. Despite a number of advances in preservation techniques, health risks related to food contamination by pathogenic microorganisms is still a big issue. Therefore, designing an innovative and biological method is required to control food borne pathogens including pathogenic bacteria. Phage therapy is one such method to detect and control food borne pathogens which offers several advantages over other methods including a specific targeting of the microorganism and their use in single or as cocktail against several pathogenic microorganisms such as E. coli O157:H7, Salmonella sp., Campylobacter jejuni, Listeria monocytogenes. Several studies have been reported suggesting the use of phages as innovative biocontrol agents where phages can either directly be used in the food product or their purified endolysin is applied to control food borne pathogens.