The conventional phage typing scheme proposed by S. Basu and S. Mukerjee (Experientia 24:299-300, 1968) has been used routinely for identification of the strains at the Vibrio Phage Reference Laboratory since 1968. However, because of limitations of this scheme, a new phage typing scheme using five newly isolated phages was incorporated into the conventional scheme. A different definition of routine test dilution (almost confluent lysis) was found to be more useful than the one previously used (confluent lysis). The 1,000 strains tested could be clustered into 27 types with the five new phages. With the new scheme of 10 phages (5 new phages and 5 phages of Basu and Mukerjee), the 1,000 strains could be grouped into 146 types. The new phages were different from each other and also from those of Basu and Mukerjee, as revealed by lytic pattern, electron microscopy, restriction endonuclease digestion, sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, and antiphage antiserum studies. With the new typing scheme, 99.6% of the strains were typeable. Phage type 115 was the most common and includes 119 (11.9%) of the 1,000 strains tested. Next most common were phage types 142 (9.4%), 143 (7.0%), 104 and 116 (both 5.4%), 3 (5.3%), 5 (4.1%), 4 (3.9%o), 24 (2.1%), and 100 (1.7%). The larger number of types would be useful for further classification of the strains for epidemiological purposes. This newly developed scheme is highly applicable to, and could be widely adopted for, phage typing of Vibrio cholerae 01 biotype El Tor strains.

Soil contamination and environmental hazard from the indiscriminate and excessive application of agrochemicals on crops have been key issues for the present-day agriculture. Additionally, the risk to human health has also led to stringent regulatory framework around the use of synthetic chemicals in agriculture. Bio-inoculants have emerged as the most feasible eco-friendly solution to these issues and have been gaining considerable consumer acceptance since the time they were first introduced. Bioagents are substances containing living microorganisms which promote plant growth and maintain the soil and crop health by increasing the supply or availability of primary nutrients to the host plant. Bio-priming which involves seed priming in combination with low dosage of beneficial microorganisms is becoming a potentially prominent technique to induce profound changes in versatility of plant performance, encourage desired attributes in crop growth, and stabilize the efficacy of biological agents in the present fragile setup of agriculture by reducing dependency on chemical inputs and offers an attractive option for resource-poor farmers being an easy and cost effective method. The most prominent contributors in fungi and bacteria which are used extensively in bio-priming include Trichoderma, Pseudomonas, Glomus, Bacillus, Agrobacterium, and Gliocladium. Here in this review, we discuss the potential of

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Bacterial enteropathogens and rotavirus were sought in 356 cases with acute diarrhoea admitted to the Infectious Diseases Hospital, Calcutta. One or more pathogens were isolated from 74.7% of the cases. Single enteropathogens could be detected from 66% and multiple enteropathogens from 8.7% of the patients. Vibrio cholerae biotype El Tor, rotavirus, V. parahaemolyticus, and enteropathogenic and enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli were the major pathogens detected. Rotavirus was detected from 7.6% of the cases. A higher rate of detection of rotavirus was seen in children younger than two years. Campylobacter jejuni could be isolated from the faeces of six (15%) of 40 cases either as a single pathogen or in association with V. cholerae biotype El Tor.