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Isolation of Pseudomonas aeruginosa from Open Ocean and Comparison with Freshwater, Clinical, and Animal Isolates

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Abstract

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an opportunistic pathogen responsible for morbidity and mortality in humans, animals, and plants. This bacterium has been regarded to be widely present in terrestrial and freshwater environments, but not in open ocean environments. Our purpose was to clarify its presence in open ocean, and their genotypic and physiological characteristics were compared with those of isolates from clinical, animal, and freshwater sources. Water samples were collected from freshwater, bays, and offshore environments in Japan. Sixty-two isolates, including 26 from the open ocean, were identified as P. aeruginosa by phenotypic characteristics and the BD Phoenix System. Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) was performed on all strains, together with 21 clinical and 8 animal strains. The results showed that open ocean strains are composed of a few genotypes, which are separated from other strains. Although some clinical isolates made a cluster, other strains tended to mix together. Different antibiotypes were observed among marine isolates that had similar PFGE and serotyping patterns. Some were multidrug-resistant. Laboratory-based microcosm study were carried out to see the responses of P. aeruginosa toward increased NaCl concentrations in deionized water (DW). Marine strains showed better survival with the increase, whereas river and clinical strains were suppressed by the increase. These findings illustrate the potential significance of open ocean as a possible reservoir of P. aeruginosa, and there may be clones unique to this environment. To our knowledge, this is the first report on the presence and characterization of P. aeruginosa in the open ocean.

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Acknowledgments

The study was supported by Grants-in-Aid for Creative Basic Research #12NP0201 (DOBIS), and #14208063 from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), Japan. We are grateful to Nihon Becton Dickinson Co., Ltd., Japan, for providing many Phoenix panels for the analyses. Our special thanks go to Dr. Kumiko-Kita Tsukamoto and Ms. Katomi Yao (Ocean Research Institute, The University of Tokyo) for doing 16S rDNA analyses of randomly selected isolates. We are also thankful to Ms. Reiko Shimatsu (Toho University School of Medicine) for her assistance during the BD Phoenix analyses. We remain indebted to Dr. Minoru Wada (Ocean Research Institute, Tokyo University) for his valuable advice during the study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Marine Microbiology Division, Ocean Research Institute, The University of Tokyo, 1-15-1 Minamidai, Nakano-Ku, Tokyo, 164-8639, Japan

    Nurul Huda Khan, Noriko Kimata-Kino, Tomohiko Nishino, Masahiko Nishimura & Kazuhiro Kogure

  2. Department of Microbiology, Toho University School of Medicine, Tokyo, 143-8540, Japan

    Yoshikazu Ishii

  3. National Veterinary Assay Laboratory, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Tokyo, 185-8511, Japan

    Hidetake Esaki

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  1. Nurul Huda Khan
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  2. Yoshikazu Ishii
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Correspondence to Nurul Huda Khan.

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Khan, N.H., Ishii, Y., Kimata-Kino, N. et al. Isolation of Pseudomonas aeruginosa from Open Ocean and Comparison with Freshwater, Clinical, and Animal Isolates. Microb Ecol 53, 173–186 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-006-9059-3

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