Nucleus-forming vibriophage cocktail reduces shrimp mortality in the presence of pathogenic bacteria

The global aquaculture industry has suffered significant losses due to the outbreak of Acute Hepatopancreatic Necrosis Disease (AHPND) caused by Vibrio parahaemolyticus. Since the use of antibiotics as control agents has not been shown to be effective, an alternative anti-infective regimen, such as phage therapy, has been proposed. Here, we employed high-throughput screening for potential phages from 98 seawater samples and obtained 14 phages exhibiting diverse host specificity patterns against pathogenic VP_AHPND strains. Among others, two Chimallinviridae phages, designated Eric and Ariel, exhibited the widest host spectrum against vibrios. In vitro and in vivo studies revealed that a cocktail derived from these two nucleus-forming vibriophages prolonged the bacterial regrowth of various pathogenic VP_AHPND strains and reduced shrimp mortality from VP_AHPND infection. This research highlights the use of high-throughput phage screening that leads to the formulation of a nucleus-forming phage cocktail applicable for bacterial infection treatment in aquaculture.