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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, February 2008, p. 708-715, Vol. 74, No. 3
0099-2240/08/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/AEM.01537-07
Copyright © 2008, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Occurrence and Expression of Luminescence in Vibrio cholerae{triangledown}

Christopher J. Grim,1,2 Elisa Taviani,2 Munirul Alam,3 Anwar Huq,1,2 R. Bradley Sack,4 and Rita R. Colwell1*

University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland,1 Center of Marine Biotechnology, University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute, Baltimore, Maryland,2 International Center for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh, Dhaka, Bangladesh,3 Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland4

Received 6 July 2007/ Accepted 21 November 2007

Several species of the genus Vibrio, including Vibrio cholerae, are bioluminescent or contain bioluminescent strains. Previous studies have reported that only 10% of V. cholerae strains are luminescent. Analysis of 224 isolates of non-O1/non-O139 V. cholerae collected from Chesapeake Bay, MD, revealed that 52% (116/224) were luminescent when an improved assay method was employed and 58% (130/224) of isolates harbored the luxA gene. In contrast, 334 non-O1/non-O139 V. cholerae strains isolated from two rural provinces in Bangladesh yielded only 21 (6.3%) luminescent and 35 (10.5%) luxA+ isolates. An additional 270 clinical and environmental isolates of V. cholerae serogroups O1 and O139 were tested, and none were luminescent or harbored luxA. These results indicate that bioluminescence may be a trait specific for non-O1/non-O139 V. cholerae strains that frequently occur in certain environments. Luminescence expression patterns of V. cholerae were also investigated, and isolates could be grouped based on expression level. Several strains with defective expression of the lux operon, including natural K variants, were identified.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: 3103 Biomolecular Sciences Building, no. 296, College Park, MD 20742. Phone: (301) 405-9550. Fax: (301) 314-6654. E-mail: rcolwell{at}umiacs.umd.edu

{triangledown} Published ahead of print on 7 December 2007.

Applied and Environmental Microbiology, February 2008, p. 708-715, Vol. 74, No. 3
0099-2240/08/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/AEM.01537-07
Copyright © 2008, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.



This article has been cited by other articles:

  • Zo, Y.-G., Chokesajjawatee, N., Grim, C., Arakawa, E., Watanabe, H., Colwell, R. R. (2009). Diversity and Seasonality of Bioluminescent Vibrio cholerae Populations in Chesapeake Bay. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 75: 135-146 [Abstract] [Full Text]  


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