1963 Volume 29 Issue 8 Pages 785-793
In the previous oceanographic survey on the distribution of TAKIKAWA'S so-called pathogenic halophilic bacteria, HORIE et al2). could not isolate the typical organisms, i. e. Group I, however, revealed that two groups of organisms, Group II and III, having similar features to Group I are widely distributed in the sea area. Group I organisms are suspected to cause acute gastro-enteritis.
In order to detect the organisms from marine environments more excellent selective media are necessary. The present authors deviced a selective liquid medium, 3% NaCl containing arabinose ethyl violet broth (AE medium). Preparation of the AE medium is shown in Table 1. In the tentative method for the examination of pathogenic halophilic bacteria in the sea water according to the Ministry of Health and Welfare, BS medium is adopted as a selective liquid medium. The present survey was carried out mainly in the coastal areas around the Suruga Bay, the Izu Peninsula, the Sagami Bay and the Tokyo Bay, aboard the Umitaka-maru, a research vessel of the Tokyo University of Fisheries. In addition to surface sea-water, marine mud at the bottom and plankton were collected for the bacteriological examination. For one sample, a pair of selective liquid media, the AE medium and BS medium were used in order to compare each other. On the other hand, a selective agar medium, 4% NaCl sucrose mannitol bile salt agar, being shown in Table 2 was employed.
Experimental results were shown in Fig. 1 and Table 4, 6 and 7. It was noted that a comparatively large number of bacteria having identical features of real pathogenic halophiles have been isolated from the sea. It was also noted that the rate of detection of the organisms by the AE medium was higher than that by the BS medium. In addition, most of the strains isolated by AE medium were found to be identical with those organisms belong to O group 2. The results obtained in the present survey indicate that the so-called pathogenic halophilic bacteria are fairly broadly distributed in marine mud and plankton in coastal sea areas.
