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Unexpected finding of the "tropical" bacterial pathogen Plesiomonas shigelloides from lake water north of the Polar Circle

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Abstract

The occurrence of Plesiomonas shigelloides in fresh water from six lakes located north of the Polar Circle in the northern part of Sweden was investigated. Bacteriological analysis of the water samples revealed the presence of nine isolates of P. shigelloides from one of the six lakes. All nine isolates were tested for biochemical characterisation, and serological and genomic typing. The biochemical profiles of all nine isolates were identical. Two strains were non-agglutinating for the O and H antigens. The other seven displayed an O19 serotype, whereas H antigen showed non-agglutinating properties. The genotyping results showed that the O19 isolates presented the same pattern, while the two non-agglutinating strains presented patterns that were different to that of the seven others. The results show that P. shigelloides can occur in aquatic environments where the temperature conditions are extremely low for long periods. This could have ecological and clinical importance for the aquatic and terrestrial fauna at these latitudes.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by grants (to K.K. and I.C.) from the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences and the Slovak Academy of Sciences. We thank Associate Professor A. Faris for help with water sampling, Dr. Anna Aspán for her PFGE technical support and Dr. Laura L. Brown for her scientific comments and English suggestions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Section of Bacteriology, SLU, Box 7036, 750 07, Uppsala, Sweden

    Carlos Gonzalez-Rey, Stefan B. Svenson & Karel Krovacek

  2. National Veterinary Institute, Uppsala, Sweden

    Laila M. Eriksson

  3. Institute of Preventive and Clinical Medicine, Limbova 14, 83301, Bratislava, Slovak Republic

    Ivan Ciznar

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  1. Carlos Gonzalez-Rey
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  2. Stefan B. Svenson
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  3. Laila M. Eriksson
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  4. Ivan Ciznar
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  5. Karel Krovacek
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Correspondence to Karel Krovacek.

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Gonzalez-Rey, C., Svenson, S.B., Eriksson, L.M. et al. Unexpected finding of the "tropical" bacterial pathogen Plesiomonas shigelloides from lake water north of the Polar Circle. Polar Biol 26, 495–499 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-003-0521-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-003-0521-0

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