Photoreactivation of bacteriophages after UV disinfection: Role of genome structure and impacts of UV source

The UV inactivation kinetics of bacteriophages MS2, PhiX174, T1 and PRD1 and the potential of bacterial UV repair mechanisms to reactivate these bacteriophages is described here. The selected bacteriophages represent a range of genome size, single and double stranded genomes, circular and linear organization and RNA and DNA. Bacteriophages were exposed to UV irradiation from two different collimated beam UV irradiation sources (medium-pressure (MP) mercury lamps and low-pressure (LP) mercury lamps) and assayed during which host-phage cultures were exposed to photoreactivating light for 6 h, then incubated overnight at 37 °C in the dark. Dark controls following UV exposure were performed in parallel. UV inactivation kinetics (using dark controls) showed that circular ssDNA phage (PhiX174) was the most sensitive and linear ssRNA phage (MS2) was the more resistant phage. No photoreactivation was observed for MS2 (RNA phage) and the highest photoreactivation was observed for PRD1. In the case of PRD1, the dose required for 4-log reduction (dark control) was around 35 mJ/cm2, with a similar dose observed for both UV sources (MP and LP). When the photoreactivation step was added, the dose required for 4-log reduction using LP lamps was 103 mJ/cm2 and for MP lamps was 60 mJ/cm2. Genome organization differences between bacteriophages play an important role in resistance to UV inactivation and potential photoreactivation mediated by bacterial host mechanisms. The use of photoreactivation during the assay of PRD1 creates a more conservative surrogate for potential use in UV challenge testing. •Bacteriophage diverse in size and genome type were studied.•Photoreactivation in phage was demonstrated for non-RNA organisms.•Differences existed in ability to photoreactivate following either LP or MP UV.•Resistance to UV irradiation was increased if a photoreactivating step was included.