Objectives:Crabs have been shown to contain dangerous bacteria in their blood and should be cooked thoroughly before eating. A recent report states that in lobster there exist nonspecific antibacterial activity not in the blood but in the hemocytes circulating in the blood serum..We intend to screen crab blood to see if a similar antibacterial agent is present.
Rationale:This study will continue our long term work with crab and bacterial infection.It will give the student an excellent opportunity to learn new lab and research skill to prepare for a job or continuing education.
Evalaution: The student will meet regularly with the instructor.The final grade will be based primarily on a final report submitted in the style of a scientific articles which describe the work accomplished during the semester.
Actual work : Crab blood will be obtained from
Drs. Roer, Roye or Dillaman for used in this experiment.Several
representative bacterial strains (2 –4) will be tested for their sensitivity
to any agent in crab blood.Whole
blood and lysed hemocytes will inoculated the test strains and incubated.Bacterial
numbers will be counted by plate counts and AODC over several time periods.
2.Title:Do Fecal Coliform Counts Correlates with the Presence of Salmonella spp
Objectives:Fecal coliform counts are the most widely use measure of water quality.The fecal coliform in itself is not pathogenic but instead is an indicator of the presence of fecal contamination.The assumption is that fecal contamination increase the risk of the presence of water borne pathogen such as Salmonella.Modern molecular technique such as DNA probes allow testing this assumption.We will use a Salmonella probe with the fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) technique to check water samples which will also be check for fecal coliform levels.
Rationale: We have been using the FISH assay to measure water quality parameters. This study will continue the process.The student will learn valuable unique lab skills which will help in either the job market or graduate school.
Evaluation: The student will meet regularly with the instructor.The final grade will be based primarily on a final report submitted in the style of a scientific articles which describe the work accomplished during the semester.
Actual Work:Water
sample will be collect as part of the UNCW tidal creek project.Fecal
coliform counts will be conducted using standard techniques except incubation
will be at 37 C instead of 44.5 C.Blue
colonies will be counted as fecal coliform.Grey
colonies will be check using the FISH technique with a specific DNA probe
to detect the presence of Salmonella.
3.Title: Isolation of a safe bacteriocin against Vibrio vulnificus
Objectives:We have successfully isolated bacteriocins against the marine pathogen Vibrio vulnificus. We had hope to use this specific antibiotic as a food additive to make raw oyster consumption safer.Unfortunately we isolated the bacteriocins from pathogenic bacteria making their use as a food additive unlikely. Our intent is to scrren nonpathogenic bacteria to isolate another bacteriocin which might be useful as an food additive.
Rationale:The student will learn additional laboratory and research skill which will aid them when they graduate and seek employment or enter into professional schools.
Evaluation: The student will meet regularly with the instructor.The final grade will be based primarily on a final report submitted in the style of a scientific articles which describe the work accomplished during the semester.
Actual work: The student will isolate luminescent
salt requiring Vibrio spp from the local estuarine environment.Previous
studies suggest that these bacteria will most likely be Vibrio harveyi
generally presumed to be nonpathogenic.These
isolates will be screened for antibacterial activity against Vibrio
vulnificus using a flipped plate technique.Isolates
that are positive will be screened to insure that they really contain a
bacteriocin.
4.Title:Determination of Archae/Eubacteria ratio in Estuarine Waters
Objectives:Since the discovery of Archae in the 1970s these procaryotes were thought to be unusual organism living ing harsh environments.Recently there have been several reports that Archae maybe the most abundant organism in seawater.The reason for the startling discovery is the development of technique that allow counting of bacteria without growing them on media.We intend to use one of these techniques, FISH (fluorescent in situ hybridization) to count these 2 bacterial types in local waters.
Rationale:We have been using FISH is the lab to measure water quality.We now have a universal Archae and Eubacterial probes which we can use in this study.The student involved will learn valuable lab and research skills which will be helpful in the job market orin graduate school.
Evaluation:The student will meet regularly with the instructor.The final grade will based on a final report of the student’s work submit in the format of a scientific article.
Actual work:The student will collected water samples from local estuarine sources.The samples will stained with specific DNA probes and then counted with an Epifluorescent microscope. The ratio of Eubacteria vs Archae from split samples will be compared.
5.Title:Antibiotic resistance patterns as an indication of pollution source
Objective: Identifying the source of fecal contamination is an important but difficult goal for microbiologist.E. coli from humans or animal are essentially identical and thus the source of this bacterium is hard to determine.One approach is to look at the antibiotic resistant pattern for fecal coliform isolated from the environment. In theory bacteria from human source should have more exposure and therefore more resistance to antibiotics than those from animals.
Rationale:We have been studying water quality for many year and this would be a continuation of that work.The student will learn valuable lab and research skills which should be helpful in the job market or in graduate school.
Evaluation:The student will meet regularly with the instructor.The final grade will be based on a report describing the work written in the style of a scientific article.
Actual work:Water
samples form Bradley creek will be collected and counted for fecal coliforms.Each
fecal coliform colony will then be tested for antibiotic resistance.
6.Title: