Improved Detection Methods for Selected Vibrio Species in the Marine Aquatic Environment

<p><em>Vibrio vulnificus</em>, <em>Vibrio cholerae</em>, and <em>Vibrio parahaemolyticus</em> are the three most commonly encountered human pathogens in the <em>Vibrio</em> genus. They are frequent agents of foodborne illness contracted from seafood. The work presented here focuses on three aspects of detection of these bacteria. First is a novel agar formulation designed to isolate and directly enumerate <em>V. vulnificus</em> from oyster tissue by using x-gal, a chromogenic analog to lactose, as a carbon source and agent of differential morphological colony growth. Second is a field study on the relative abundance of the three main pathogenic Vibrios following the opening of the Bonnet Carre spillway to prevent the Mississippi River from flooding New Orleans. This influx of fresh water into the Mississippi sound had a significant impact on the salinity and enabled <em>V. cholerae</em> growth to dominate over the other two pathogenic Vibrios during the time the spillway was open. The third and last chapter of work presented here is the development and validation of a novel method for enumeration of <em>V. parahaemolyticus</em> in the viable but nonculturable state. This dormant state prevents the bacteria from being enumerated by standard methods. The work presented here allows enumeration of the bacteria from environmental waters in total, and when coupled with other methods, allows enumeration of the VBNC portion of the population. The work presented in this thesis serves to further characterize these bacteria and presents novel methods for their detection that may be used to mitigate their risk to human health.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science (MS)

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Coastal Sciences, Gulf Coast Research Laboratory

Year dc:date.available

2012

Author dc:creator

• Griffitt, Kimberly Jordan

Contributors dc:contributor

• Jay Grimes
• Crystal Johnson
• Kevin Dillon

Repository record dc:identifier

https://aquila.usm.edu/masters_theses/479

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:aquila.usm.edu:masters_theses-1557