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Survival of escherichia coli in Water Microcosm Study and Rethinking its Use as Indicator

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Abstract

We investigated the fate of Escherichia coli in natural waters, addressing survival, viable but non-culturable (VBNC) state, changes in phenotype and genomic diversification under laboratory microcosm environment. Five E. coli isolates (three marine, one clinical and one laboratory strain) were inoculated in microcosms of sterile distilled water, as well as, water collected from river, pond, sea, and estuary. A viable count was measured every week for up to 33 weeks. Strains which undergone VBNC state in microcosms were resuscitated. The revived isolates were tested to determine changes in antibiotic susceptibility, thermotolerance and genetic fingerprinting. We found extended persistence of five E. coli strains in water microcosms at room temperature for durations ranging from four to 33 weeks. Even in distilled water, some isolates persisted up to seven weeks; proving E. coli have excellent tenacity to survive. At VBNC state in microcosms, bacteria were small coccoid in shape and formed biofilms in most cases. Resuscitated laboratory strains showed changes in antibiotic susceptibility and thermotolerance compared to the original counterpart. However, the revived marine isolates showed very little to no difference in those tests. Resuscitation media could not revived the pathogenic isolates. The REP- and BOX-PCR genomic fingerprinting also showed some genetic diversification among resuscitated strains during the extended survival and VBNC state. The overall observation supports for the E. coli to survive in natural waters and to enter into VBNC state. It ultimately proves that their presence in water does not necessarily indicate faecal contamination but still beyond acceptance.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We are indebted to Nowshin Nusrat, Dipon Kundu and S.M. Shajidur Rahman for essential help in field and laboratory work.

Funding

This study was funded by the Higher Education Quality Enhancement Project (HEQEP), Academic Innovation Fund (AIF) 3rd round sub-project (CP 3400).

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  1. Department of Microbiology, Jashore University of Science and Technology, 7408, Jashore, Bangladesh

    U. Saima, M. Alam & S. Akter

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  1. U. Saima
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Correspondence to S. Akter.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. This article does not contain any studies involving animals or human participants performed by any of the authors.

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Saima, U., Alam, M. & Akter, S. Survival of escherichia coli in Water Microcosm Study and Rethinking its Use as Indicator. Microbiology 90, 247–260 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1134/S0026261721020107

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