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Appl Environ Microbiol, January 1998, p. 346-351, Vol. 64, No. 1
0099-2240/98/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1998, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

Phages Infecting Vibrio vulnificus Are Abundant and Diverse in Oysters (Crassostrea virginica) Collected from the Gulf of Mexico

Angelo DePaola,^1,* Miles L. Motes,¹ Amy M. Chan,² and Curtis A. Suttle²

Gulf Coast Seafood Laboratory, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Dauphin Island, Alabama, 36528,¹ and Departments of Earth and Ocean Sciences (Oceanography), Botany and Microbiology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z4, Canada²

Received 16 July 1997/Accepted 10 October 1997

Phages infecting Vibrio vulnificus were abundant (>10⁴ phages g of oyster tissue¹) throughout the year in oysters (Crassostrea virginica) collected from estuaries adjacent to the Gulf of Mexico (Apalachicola Bay, Fla.; Mobile Bay, Ala.; and Black Bay, La.). Estimates of abundance ranged from 10¹ to 10⁵ phages g of oyster tissue¹ and were dependent on the bacterial strain used to assay the sample. V. vulnificus was near or below detection limits (<0.3 cell g¹) from January through March and was most abundant (10³ to 10⁴ cells g¹) during the summer and fall, when phage abundances also tended to be greatest. The phages isolated were specific to strains of V. vulnificus, except for one isolate that caused lysis in a few strains of V. parahaemolyticus. Based on morphological evidence obtained by transmission electron microscopy, the isolates belonged to the Podoviridae, Styloviridae, and Myoviridae, three families of double-stranded DNA phages. One newly described morphotype belonging to the Podoviridae appears to be ubiquitous in Gulf Coast oysters. Isolates of this morphotype have an elongated capsid (mean, 258 nm; standard deviation, 4 nm; n = 35), with some isolates having a relatively broad host range among strains of V. vulnificus. Results from this study indicate that a morphologically diverse group of phages which infect V. vulnificus is abundant and widely distributed in oysters from estuaries bordering the northeastern Gulf of Mexico.

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^* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Gulf Coast Seafood Laboratory, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, P.O. Box 158, Dauphin Island, AL 36528. Phone: (334) 694-4480. Fax: (334) 694-4477. E-mail: AXD{at}vm.cfsan.fda.gov.

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