Use of the Biolog MicroStation System to classify and identify Vibrionaceae bacteria from a seasonally-cold ocean

Noble, Lisa Dorothy (1995) Use of the Biolog MicroStation System to classify and identify Vibrionaceae bacteria from a seasonally-cold ocean. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

The Biolog™ MicroStation System was evaluated for its capacity to identify marine bacteria. The strains studied were Vibrionaceae type cultures and strains isolated from a seasonally-cold ocean. Using the Biolog system 54% of the Vibrionaceae strains were correctly identified, 18% of the strains were incorrectly identified, and 28% were not assigned an identity. Part of this study was to investigate ways in which the accuracy of the system might be improved. -- Marine bacteria require Na⁺ for growth. Biolog protocol was altered to bring these strains to a more optimal metabolic potential during tests. It was found that 62% of strains were more metabolically active when suspended in a marine cation supplement (MCS) plus yeast (MCSpY). Twenty-four percent of the strains were more metabolically active when suspended in salts solutions containing MCS. MCS was used in the suspending salts when testing the regional strains because this solution encouraged high metabolic activity and had a comparable identification rate to the standard suspension solution which was saline. -- Approximately 36% of the regional strains were assigned a name by Biolog. Based on previous knowledge of the type of metabolism of the bacteria the names assigned were probably incorrect. It was concluded that the Biolog system was an inadequate identification system for Vibrionaceae. A classification procedure based on data collected by the Biolog system was not significantly different (p-value < 0.01) from a classification based on data produced from traditional or classical bacteriological tests. This indicated that the Biolog microbial identification system could be useful for identification and classification provided that the users included reference cultures in the studies and subsequently created their own data bases. A classification meeting these criteria was produced during the course of this study.

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