History of Bacteriophages Infecting Solventogenic Clostridia

One of the earliest unconfirmed examples of an ABE fermentation phage infection concerned an abnormal fermentation at the CSC plant in Terre Haute, USA, using maize mash as substrate for a C. acetobutylicum strain [32]. In this instance, the sluggish fermentation lasted for about 1 year and halved the solvent yield. CSC expended considerable efforts into the investigation of the cause of this abnormal fermentation performance and developed a number of countermeasures for preventing its recurrence. These included the use of phage-immunized clostridial 

Apart from the phage infections in Japan, the United States, and South Africa in the fermentation plants discussed above, other countries (i.e.. Republic of Cuba, Soviet Union, and the United Arab Republic) faced similar problems, and sporadic reports documenting these cases can be found in the literature [30,43]. 

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