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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, December 2003, p. 7541-7544, Vol. 69, No. 12
0099-2240/03/$08.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/AEM.69.12.7541-7544.2003
Copyright © 2003, American
Society for
Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Environmental Health, Science and Policy, University of California, Irvine, California 92697
Received 22 April 2003/ Accepted 4 September 2003
| ABSTRACT |
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| INTRODUCTION |
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(30), and previous
reports have implied the acquisition of these CT genes under conditions
similar to those of the aquatic environment
(9,
10). The presence of virulence genes among environmental strains of V. cholerae was examined among isolates from freshwater lakes and ponds in the eastern part of Calcutta, India (3). Virulence genes, including ctxAB, were found among environmental strains. However, since the India subcontinent is an area in which cholera is endemic, possibly these virulence genes are contributed by human waste from a diseased population. When a limited number of isolates was used, the occurrence of ctxA was also found among 10% of non-O1/O139 environmental isolates from coastal Brazil (24). Here we report on the diversity and prevalence of virulence genes ctxA and zot among non-O1/O139 V. cholerae isolates from the Newport Bay, California, watershed, a region of nonepidemicity.
A total of 137 V. cholerae isolates from San Diego Creek and Newport Bay, California, obtained over a year were examined (15). Each isolate was given a 7-digit code. The first two characters indicate the isolation site; the following four digits indicate the month and year of isolation. The final character indicates the identity of individual strains. For example, C10899a indicates strain a isolated from site C1 in August 1999. Water samples for isolation were taken monthly from seven sites. Sites C1 to C3 were located in San Diego Creek, a major tributary of the Newport Bay, with an additional three sites (UC, UNB, and BC) spread throughout upper and low Newport Bay. The seventh site was at the Pacific Ocean front at the Balboa Pier (BP). There is no known source of direct sewage influence to any of the sampling sites. However, all locations are influenced by urban runoff during the winter rainy season. Since there has not been a case of cholera in the area for over 50 years, the level of occurrence of toxigenic V. cholerae in sewage and urban runoff is expected to be low or nonexistent. Details on sampling locations and isolation and confirmation methods can be found in the report of Jiang and Fu (15).
Isolates were cultured in Luria-Bertani broth (Difco Inc.), and genomic DNA was extracted using a Wizard genomic DNA purification kit and protocol (Promega). DNA purity and quantity were determined using UV spectrophotometry (Beckman). DNA extracts were stored at 4°C for less than 2 days before fingerprint analysis and PCR analysis of virulence genes were conducted.
Enterobacterial repetitive intergenic consensus sequence-PCR (ERIC-PCR) genomic fingerprinting was performed essentially as described by Rivera et al. (23), with minor modifications. Briefly, bacterial genomic DNA was heated to 65°C for 10 min before conducting PCR. Two primers (ATGTAAGCTCCTGGGGATTCAC and AAGTAAGTGACTGGGGTGAGCG) for PCR were used in the program and under the conditions described by Rivera et al. (23). Each 50-µl reaction mixture contained 1x PCR buffer, deoxynucleoside triphosphates (50 nM each), 50 pmol of each primer, and 1.25 U of Taq DNA polymerase (Perkin Elmer). Two V. cholerae reference strains, O1 El Tor nontoxigenic (isolated from Mexico) and classical (ATCC 11623), were used as internal controls to ensure run-to-run reproducibility. A 1-kb DNA stepladder and a 200-bp DNA stepladder (Promega) were run at multiple gel locations for correction of distortion and normalization between gels. Digitized fingerprints were analyzed using GelCompar II (Applied Maths, Sint-Martens-Latem, Belgium) software, following the manufacturer's instructions. In brief, fingerprint types were defined, target lanes were searched, and manually refined, gel-to-gel variations were normalized on the basis of external references (molecular-weight markers run at multiple locations on the gels) and within-gel common bands were aligned using internal references. The bands were selected using the autosearch function and then eye refined. A band-based comparison (employing the similarity coefficient defined by Jaccard) was used to create a similarity matrix. The clustering method of Ward was used to create the dendrogram. The Ward method is intended for interval-scaled measurements and makes use of Euclidean distances (19). A band position tolerance of 2% was allowed in the comparison.
Amplification of ctxA and zot genes was performed as previously described (12, 24). The primers for ctxA were 94F (CGG GCA GATTCT AGA CCT CCT G) and 614R (CGA TGA TCT TGG AGC ATT CCC AC). The primers for zot were 225F (TCG CTT AAC GAT GGC GCG TTT T) and 1129R (AAC CCC GTT TCA CTT CTA CCC A). Each 25-µl reaction mixture contained 1x PCR buffer, deoxynucleoside triphosphates (50 nM each), 0.8 µM of each primer, and 0.75 U of Taq DNA polymerase. Amplifications were performed at 94°C for 2 min followed by 30 cycles of 94°C for 1 min, 60°C for 1 min, and 72°C for 1 min, with a final extension at 72°C for 10 min.
For
ctxA confirmation, PCR products were Southern transferred to
nylon membranes and hybridized with a
-P32-end-labeled internal probe
(ACGGGATTTGTTAGGCACG). Hybridizations were carried
out at 45°C overnight and stringently washed twice with
2x SSC (1x SSC is 0.15 M NaCl plus 0.015 M sodium
citrate), 1% sodium dodecyl sulfate, and 0.05% sodium
pyrophosphate at 55°C for 1 h each time. Positive
hybridizations were determined by autoradiography.
For sequence
analysis, PCR amplicons were gel excised and purified using a QIAquick
gel purification kit (Qiagen Inc., Valencia, Calif.), cloned into
pGEM-T, and transformed into Escherichia coli
DH5
-competent cells, following the instructions of the
manufacturer (Promega). Positive transformants (white colonies) were
picked and reamplified to confirm the presence of an insert. Plasmid
DNA was purified using a QIAquick mini prep kit (Qiagen Inc.), and
inserts were sequenced bidirectionally using an ABI BigDye Terminator
Cycle Sequencing Ready Reaction kit (Applied Biosystems, Foster City,
Calif.) and following the manufacturer's recommendations. Multiple
alignments were performed using ClustalX
(27) with default
settings.
Examination (using ERIC-PCR) (23) of 137 environmental isolates yielded 104 unique fingerprint patterns. Figure 1 shows 37 of 104 unique fingerprints that represent the grouping pattern. The figure was first produced to include all strains and duplicates; selective toxin gene-negative strains were subsequently removed to reduce the size of the figure without dramatically impacting the groupings. All strains positive for at least one toxin gene, as well as toxin-negative strains that had very similar fingerprints to those of toxin-positive strains, were left in the figure. No environmental isolate had a pattern identical to those of either O1 classical or nontoxigenic O1 El Tor V. cholerae strains. Similarity analysis grouped all isolates into three major clusters. There was no clear separation of isolates from different locations. However, the groupings related to the date of isolation. For example, most isolates obtained during the winter of 1999 (November and December) were grouped together and were more closely related to the group primarily containing isolates from February and March 2000 than to the group of isolates from the summer and fall of 1999 (July, August, and October). This result is in agreement with the results of a previous study of genetic diversity of V. cholerae isolates from the Chesapeake Bay (16). The seasonal succession of genotypes of environmental V. cholerae is likely linked to changes in environmental conditions such as temperature, salinity, radiation, and nutrients and in the species of phytoplankton and zooplankton.
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structural gene zot, while 12
zot-positive strains were negative for ctxA (Table
1). These results indicate
that a portion of the CTX
prophage genome may be missing or
may have been disrupted by deletion or insertion, suggesting that many
CTX
genes among the environmental strains are likely
defective. Defective prophage genomes are commonly found among all
genera of bacteria (29).
Approximately 6% of the strains from Newport Bay were positive
for both ctxA and zot genes. It is also interesting that isolates with nearly identical ERIC-PCR fingerprints (i.e., strains C21199d and C31199b and strains BC1299b and BC1299e) are different with respect to the harboring of toxin genes (Fig. 1). This result parallels the results of a previous study using a high-resolution DNA fingerprinting method to show that clinical toxigenic V. cholerae isolates are closely related to nontoxigenic environmental strains (17) and further suggests that CT genes are highly mobile among environmental isolates.
CTX
transfer among clinical strains requires
the presence of the toxin-coregulated pilus (TCP) as receptor. Since
TCP expression is optimal in the gastrointestinal tract, it has been
hypothesized that the acquisition of CTX
occurs within the
human host (4,
26). How ctxA
genes are spread in an aquatic environment in an area of nonepidemicity
is unclear. It is possible that a different mechanism of gene transfer
operates for V. cholerae in aquatic environments. Transfer of
CTX
via general transduction to TCP-negative strains has been
demonstrated in the laboratory
(2). More interestingly,
Faruque et al. (8,
11) also showed that both
a TCP-negative environmental V. cholerae isolate and strains
of TCP-negative Vibrio mimicus were susceptible to infection
by filamentous phage CTX
and formed stable lysogens.
Therefore, the evidence presented above supports the hypothesis of the
existence of a TCP-independent mechanism for infection by CTX
.
Furthermore, the spread of CT genes in the environment can be
facilitated by the exposure of CTX
-positive strains to
sunlight (7). Studies have
shown both increased rates of phage production and transduction to
nontoxigenic strains when induced by sunlight.
It is presently
unclear whether the CT genes among these environmental isolates are
expressed or what their biological and ecological function is in the
aquatic environment. Approximately 6% of isolates from Newport
Bay, California, may contain a functional CTX
. Since a large
portion of the Newport Bay is used as a recreational resort, the
occurrence of toxigenic V. cholerae here raises a question
regarding potential risk of human exposure. A rare cholera outbreak in
Louisiana in the United States in September of 1978 was attributed to
environmental strains in shellfish collected from the Gulf of Mexico
(1). Therefore, the study
presented here (in combination with the increasing body of literature
reflecting environmental V. cholerae research) supports the
idea that CT has an environmental origin and that the complex aquatic
environment can give rise to pathogenic V.
cholerae.
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| ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
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| FOOTNOTES |
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| REFERENCES |
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