Ecological relationships between Vibrio cholerae and planktonic crustacean copepods

Abstract

Strains of Vibrio cholerae, both O1 and non-O1 serovars, were found to attach to the surfaces of live copepods maintained in natural water samples collected from the Chesapeake Bay and Bangladesh environs. The specificity of attachment of V. cholerae to live copepods was confirmed by scanning electron microscopy, which revealed that the oral region and egg sac were the most heavily colonized areas of the copepods. In addition, survival of V. cholerae in water was extended in the presence of live copepods. Attachment of viable V. cholerae cells to copepods killed by exposure to -60 degrees C was not observed. Furthermore, survival of V. cholerae was not as long in the presence of dead copepods as in the live copepod system. A strain of Vibrio parahaemolyticus was also seen to attach to copepod surfaces without effect on survival of the organism in water. The attachment of vibrios to copepods was concluded to be significant since strains of other bacteria, including Pseudomonas sp. and Escherichia coli, did not adhere to live or dead copepods. Attachment of V. cholerae to live copepods is suggested to be an important factor of the ecology of this species in the aquatic environment, as well as in the epidemiology of cholera, for which V. cholerae serovar O1 is the causative agent.

Dynamics and predictive modelling of Vibrio spp. in the Neuse River Estuary, North Carolina, USA

“…Mourino-Perez et al, 2003;Thompson et al, 2004b;Hsieh et al, 2007). Several studies have shown that Vibrio spp., in particular V. cholerae, have the ability to colonize particles such as zooplankton and phytoplankton (Huq et al, 1983;Tamplin et al, 1990;Montanari et al, 1999). Potentially, eutrophication caused by nutrient loading could have a small but significant impact on Vibrio spp.…”

Cholera epidemics in 2010: respective roles of environment, strain changes, and human-driven dissemination

“…The situation worsened in July, as the weekly incidence of cholera increased simultaneously in the four countries, reaching a peak in August or September, depending on the affected nation. The worst 7 days occurred during the 37th epidemic week (13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19), with almost 7000 new cases recorded altogether in the four countries. Thereafter, the epidemic extended beyond national borders, with the epidemic macro-centre being by the lakeside districts of Lake Chad [23] (Fig.…”

High abundance of virulence gene homologues in marine bacteria

“…MED222 with a similarity of 64-69% conserved amino acids. Indeed, some bacteria of the Vibrionaceae family are well known to associate to marine arthropods, for example, copepods (Huq et al, 1983), possibly indicating a role for the marine ymt genes in this context.…”