Physiological and Ecological Characteristics of Hemolytic Vibrios and Development of Sanitary Countermeasure of Raw Fisheries Foods - 2. Physiological and Psychrotrophic Characteristics of Vibrio mimicus SM-9 Isolated from Sea Water
Vibrio mimicus is a closely related species with V. cholerae, and has been reported to be associated with gastrointestinal infections. Although extraintestinal infections of these vibrios have also been reported in Japan and Southeast Asia. But little research papers on V. mimicus was reported in Korea. Therefore, we tried to isolate V. mimicus from the environmental sea water from April to July in Pusan, Korea. Among the isolated strains, we selected the strongest hemolytic strain and then named V. mimicus SM-9. In this paper, we checked the antibiotic susceptibility and psychrotrophic characteristics of the isolated strain. Hemolytic activity of the hemolysin produced by the isolated strain was also measured. V. mimicus was not detected from the sea water samples in April and May, but its detection rate was relatively high in June and July in Pusan, Korea. The bacteriological characteristics of V. mimicus SM-9 were Gram-negative rods, motile, oxidase positive, Voges-Proskauer negative and sucrose negative. In 23 kinds of antibiotics susceptibility test, V. mimicus SM-9 showed susceptibility to the most of antibiotics submitted while it was resistive against lincomycin, oxacillin, rifampin and vancomycin. Hemolytic activity of the hemolysin produced by V. mimicus SM-9 was highest in stationary phase of the growth curve in BHI broth at 37℃ and its activity was reached 18 HU per ml of culture supernatant. For checking the psychrotrophic property of V. mimicus SM-9, the decreasing rate of the strain in phosphate buffer solution and yellowtail flesh homogenate was examined during the storage at 4, 0, -4 and -20℃. The decreasing rates of the selected strain stored in phosphate buffer solution were greater than those in fish homogenate. Decreasing rates of V. mimicus SM-9 stored in phosphate buffer solution were not significantly different by the storage temperatures. The viable cell counts of the strain were decreased as 5 log cycles after 120 hours at all the tested temperatures. While decreasing numbers of the strain in fish homogenates were 2-4 log cycles after 120 hours. The decreasing pattern of the strain numbers were very slow after 200 hours at all the stored temperatures.