Abstract:
The purposesof this thesis were to investigate the effects of environmental factors on
density of Vibrio spp. in seawater and oyster samples collected from Ang-Sila coastal area. The
montly incidence of Vibrio spp. in oysters was determined using 25 individual oysters as a
sampling size per month. Besides, the impacts of some environmental factors, focus on physical
factors,on some virulence factors of the isolated Vibrio spp. as well as the bacterial antimicrobial
susceptibility pattern were also investigated. As a result, the density of total Vibrio spp. in
seawater were detected in range of 2 -14 MPN/100 mL and the highest density was observed in
April and May. In addition, the bacterial density was statistically significant increased when the
seawater salanity was risen (Pearson correlation coeffeicients =0.484,p< 0.05). However, the
decreasing in Vibrio spp. occurrence was occurred if the rainfall rate and seawater temperature
were increased (Pearson correlation coeffeicients of -0.622 and -0.444 respectively, p< 0.05).
As similar to those in seawater, the Vibrio spp. density in oysters wasnoticed in range of 3 -35
MPN/g and thehighest density was recognized in February. From statistic analysis using pearson
correlation coefficient, the Vibriospp. density in oysters was tend to be increased when the
rainfall rate and nitrate level were decreased (Pearson correlation coeffeicients =-0.391 and
-0.507 respectively, p< 0.05). All the isolated bacteria were aslo identified using commercial
biochemical testing system, API 20E, and 6 species of Vibrio were determined including
V. alginolyticus, V. cholerae, V. fluvialis, V. parahaemolyticus, V. mimicus and V. vulnificus.
The montly incidence of Vibrio spp. in 25 individual oysters was also evaluated using
conventional microbiological technique. The highest incidence of V. alginolyticus (36 %),
V. vulnificus (24 %), V. cholerae (12 %), V. mimicus (20 %) were found in Febuary, April,
October, and December whereas that of V. parahaemolyticus (20 %) was demonstrated in January and December. Moreover, the effect of some environmental factors (salinity,
temperature and pH) on the bacterial virulence, including hemolytic activity and biofilm
formation, were also explored in some isolates of Vibrio spp. As a result from hemolytic activity
assay, V. parahaemolyticus exhibited β-hemolysis on blood agar and the relative hemolytic
activity was significantly increased if the temperature and NaCl concentration were elevated
(p< 0.05). In addition, the relative biofilm formation provided by V. vulnificus was highest at
culture condition of 35o
C, 3 % NaCl, pH 7.5 for48 hour and the formation will be significantly
decreased from 90 % to 48 % when the temperature was increased from 35o
C to 28o
C (p< 0.01).
Finally, an antibiotic susceptibility testing of some isolated Vibrio spp. (n=115) revealed high
percentages of ampicillin resistant isolates (64 % ). Among six species of Vibrio, V. alginolyticus
possesses the highest incidence of resistant. An β-lactamase activity of some ampicillin resistant
isolates of this bacteria was carried out via spectrophoto-metric assay with nitrocepfin as
substrate. The highest relative β-lactamase activity (OD486= 1.17±0.11) was observed at the
testing condition of 35o
C, 3.5 % NaCl and pH 7.5. Regardless of the pH level and NaCl
concentration, the relative β-lactamase activity was significantly decreased to (OD486= 0.29±
0.04) if the testing temperature was switched to 28o
C (p< 0.05).