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Transfer of Enteric Pathogens to Successive Habitats as Part of Microbial Cycles

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Abstract

Escherichia coli O157:H7 gfp and Salmonella enterica Typhimurium gfp passed through six successive habitats within a microbial cycle. Pathogen cultures were introduced into cow dung or fodder. Microscopically observed cells and CFUs were monitored in fodder, dung, dung-soil mix, rhizosphere and phyllosphere of cress or oat plants grown in infested dung–soil mix, and in excrements of snails or mice fed with contaminated cress or oat shoots. Both methods were sensitive enough to monitor cells and CFUs throughout the chain. There was a positive correlation between cells and CFUs. Both pathogens declined through the successive habitats, but with unexpected increased densities on plants compared to dung–soil mix. Pathogen densities were higher in the phyllosphere than the rhizosphere of cress, but for oat plants this was reverse. Survival in dung was better after passage through the digestive tract of cows than after introduction of cultures into dung. Positive correlations between pathogens and copiotrophic bacteria (CB) and dissolved organic carbon (DOC) were observed in dung and dung-soil mixtures, but at low DOC contents CB densities were higher than pathogen densities. Thus, the pathogens are able to cycle through different habitats, surviving or growing better at high DOC concentrations, but maintaining population densities that are sufficiently high to cause disease in humans.

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Acknowledgements

We thank N.N. Kunenkova for preliminary laboratory work and E.V. Semenova for co-supervising N.N. Kunenkova and A.A. Kuprianov. This research and associated travel costs were funded by NWO-Russia collaborative grant #047.014.001 to A.H.C. van Bruggen and A.M. Semenov, a NATO-Russia Collaborative Linkage Grant, the EU CoreOrganic project ‘PATHORGANIC’ and by NWO fellowship #040.11.057 to A.M. Semenov. We are also thankful to the Erasmus Mundus External Cooperation project IAMONET-Russia for a cooperative grant to A.H.C. van Bruggen in 2008 and to A.M. Semenov in 2010.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Microbiology, Biological Faculty, Moscow State University, 119899 Vorob’evy Gory, Moscow, Russia

    Alexander M. Semenov & Alexei A. Kuprianov

  2. Emerging Pathogens Institute and Plant Pathology Department, IFAS, University of Florida, PO Box 110680, Gainesville, FL, 32611-0680, USA

    Ariena H. C. van Bruggen

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  1. Alexander M. Semenov
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  2. Alexei A. Kuprianov
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Correspondence to Alexander M. Semenov.

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Semenov, A.M., Kuprianov, A.A. & van Bruggen, A.H.C. Transfer of Enteric Pathogens to Successive Habitats as Part of Microbial Cycles. Microb Ecol 60, 239–249 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-010-9663-0

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