Distribution of ribonucleic acid coliphages in south and east Asia

Abstract

We investigated the distribution of ribonucleic acid (RNA) coliphages in the Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia, India, and Thailand by collecting sewage samples from domestic drainage in November 1976. Of the 221 samples collected

Distribution of genotypes of F-specific RNA bacteriophages in human and non-human sources of faecal pollution in South Africa and Spain

“…According to published literature, F-RNA phage genotypes II and III have been detected only in human faeces and genotypes I and IV in animal faeces (Hsu et al 1995;Beekwilder et al 1996;Hsu et al 1997;Uys 1999;Grabow 2001). This is in agreement with reports on the incidence of serotypes in human and animal faeces (Furuse et al 1978;Furuse et al 1981;Osawa et al 1981;Havelaar et al 1986). The only exception to this rule on record is the detection of serotype II bacteriophages in pig faeces and the detection of serotype IV in human faeces (Havelaar et al 1990).…”

“…Consequently, the composition of genotypes in raw sewage and, particularly, treated wastewaters as well as environmental water sources may be subject to age, treatment and exposure to unfavourable conditions. Furuse et al (1978) found that subgroup II F-RNA phages seemed to predominate in cold regions and subgroup III phages in warm climates. They concluded that the incidence of genotypes may be affected by geographical factors.…”

“…Microbiological methods include: ratios of faecal coliforms to faecal streptococci (Geldreich and Kenner 1969); the presence of Rhodococcus coprophilus (Mara and Oragui 1981); the presence of some phenotypes of Bifidobacterium species (Mara and Oragui 1983); the presence of some phenotypes of Bacteroides species (Kreader 1995); ribotypes of Escherichia coli (Carson et al 2001;Parveen et al 1999); repetitive DNA sequences of E. coli (Dombek et al 2000); antibiotic resistance patterns (Wiggins 1996;Harwood et al 2000); serogrouping of F-specific RNA (F-RNA) bacteriophages (Furuse et al 1978); bacteriophages specific for various strains of Bacteroides fragilis (Tartera et al 1989;Puig et al 1999) and phage typing of Staphylococcus aureus (Zierdt et al 1980). The ideal would be to have a single test to determine the origin of faecal pollution.…”

“…These phages are divided into four main serogroups. A number of studies have revealed that serotypes II and III are mainly isolated from human faeces and serotypes I and IV mainly from animal faeces (Furuse et al 1978;Furuse et al 1981;Osawa et al 1981;Havelaar et al 1990). More recently it has been shown that, with a few exceptions, members of each of the serogroups belong to a genetically distinguishable genotype (Hsu et al 1995;Beekwilder et al 1996).…”

Occurrence of microbial indicators, pathogenic bacteria and viruses in tropical surface waters subject to contrasting land use

“…In this study, a higher prevalence of FRNA G2 (detection frequency ¼ 52.3%) was found compared to FRNA G3 (detection frequency ¼ 5%). This finding contradicts an earlier study which reported that FRNA G2 seems to be more prominent in cold regions, while FRNA G3 dominated in warm regions (Furuse et al, 1978). One of the possible reasons could be the higher persistence of FRNA G2 compared to FRNA G3 in natural environments (Schaper et al, 2002a).…”