DNA Isolation of Microbial Contaminants in Aviation Turbine Fuel via Traditional Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) and Direct PCR. Preliminary Results

Abstract

The public reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information. Send comments regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing this burden, to Department of Defense, Washington Headquarters Services, Directorate for Information SPONSORING/MONITORING AGENCY REPORT NUMBER(S) AFRL-PR-WP-TR-2006-2049 DISTRIBUTION/AVAILABILITY STATEMENTApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTESReport contains color. ABSTRACTMicrobially contaminated aviation fuel cause the Air Force increased maintenance and replacement costs from problems such as fuel gauge malfunctions, fuel line and filter plugging, and corrosion. As a result, there is considerable interest in identifying microbial growth and finding strategies to mitigate it. Previous research to isolate and identify aviation fuel microbial contaminants has used cultivation-based methodologies. This study aimed to investigate newer molecular methods to more comprehensively characterize the bioburden in aviation fuel supplies. Several fuel samples were analyzed for bacterial contamination using two distinct methods: a cultivation-independent method (direct PCR) and a traditional cultivation-dependant method. A total of 36 bacterial genera were identified, including 28 genera which have not been previously reported in aviation fuel. Nearly 62% of the new bacterial genera were isolated with the cultivation-independent method only, 33% with both methods, and only 5% with the cultivation-dependant method only. SUBJECT TERMS LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES ABSTRACTMicrobial contaminated aviation fuel causes the Air Force increased maintenance and replacement costs from problems such as fuel gauge malfunctions, fuel line and filter plugging, and corrosion. As a result, there is considerable interest in identifying microbial growth and finding strategies to mitigate it. Previous research to isolate and identify aviation fuel microbial contaminants has used cultivation-based methodologies. This study aimed to investigate newer molecular methods to more comprehensively characterize the bioburden in aviation fuel supplies. Several fuel samples were analyzed for bacterial contamination using two distinct methods: a cultivation-independent method (direct PCR) and a traditional cultivation-dependent method. A total of 36 bacterial genera were identified, including 28 genera which have not been reported in aviation fuel. Nearly 62% of the new bacterial genera were isolated with the cultivation-independent method only, 33% with both methods, and only 5% with the cultivation-dependent method only. The cultivation-independent method identified an average of four times the amount of contaminants as identified using the cultivation-dependent...

Microbial Contaminants in the Commercial Aviation Fuel Obtained from Benin City Airport, Nigeria

“…They were Micrococcus luteus, Serratia marcescens, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Bacillus subtilis, Citrobacter freundii, Klebsiella aerogenes, Acinetobacter calcoaceticus, Fusarium oxysporum, Penicillium italicum, Rhizopus stolonifer, Aspergillus fumigatus and Candida tropicalis (Table 1). This result is in agreement with the report of Denaro et al [17] and Rauch et al [2] who isolated Acinetobacter spp, Bacillus spp, Micrococcus spp, Serratia spp, Pseudomonas spp, Aspergillus spp, Fusarium spp, Penicillium spp and Candida spp from their aviation fuel samples.…”