Biofouling is a pervasive challenge in industrial and medical settings with enormous economic and health impacts. Use of quorum-quenching phages is a potential solution in either combating the biofilm or inhibiting biofilm formation when an engineered phage is designed for a specific bacterial system. In the event of a real-life application of synthetic phage, it is necessary to consider the effect of environmental conditions on the synthetic phage. This study focused on both (1) stability of phage lysate under different types of carbon sources and (2) competition of the engineered phage in comparison to a wild-type (wt) phage. Optimal results were found (in plaque forming units [PFUs]) with glucose as a carbon source and were kept stable for almost 30 days. Results suggested that competition happens before 4 h. After that time, polymerase chain reaction results from PFU samples showed an increase in T7aiiA, which indicates that these conditions favored the phage replication of the engineered phage over the wt at 27 h in a monoculture system. When both stability and competition were combined, the mix of phages showed a trend similar to T7aiiA only primarily after 8 days.
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