Direct microscopic examination reveals that such cells account for a large part of the microflora ; the total

flora count, as observed by epifluorescence, is 1000 to l0000-fold greater in number compared to the viable heterotrophic flora (pommepuy et al., 1990). The survival of bacterial sediment populations can depend on their ability to store energy reserves. The presence of osmoprotectors (glycine-betaine, trehalose, amino acids) may also help to increase survival rates of fecal bacteria in salt environments. Ghoul et al. (1989, 1990) observed that when Escherichia coli are put into muddy sediments, they are able to intracellularly store exogenous betaine and thus increase their salttolerance.

The survival of bacterial sediment populations can depend on their ability to store energy reserves. The presence of osmoprotectors (glycine-betaine, trehalose, amino acids) may also help to increase survival rates of fecal bacteria in salt environments. Ghoul et al. (1989, 1990) observed that when Escherichia coli are put into muddy sediments, they are able to intracellularly store exogenous betaine and thus increase their salttolerance.
Apparent mortality (190) in sediment

Many authors have studied survival times of enteric microorganisms in sediment. Sediment protects bacteria from solar radiation, in addition to procuring osmoprotectors and nutrient elements (Gerba and MacLeod, 1976). Survival times are very long for fecal bacteria in sediment. They can vary from several days to several weeks. The apparent mortality (T90 - time needed for 90 % of bacteria to be unable to cultivate) in sediment, was calculated by Le Guyader (1989) and varies from 6 to 20 days for E. coli; some other groups of bacteria, such as Salmonella can survive several weeks in sediments (Gudding and Krodgstad, 1975) ; the same mortality rates were calculated for fecal streptococci. TABLE 1 Characterization of cells in survival stages of progressive dormancy (Rosack and Colwell, 1987).
Method of Survival at the following stage in the continuum enumeration Growth Metabolically or detection Culturable Recoverable responsive active Dormant Intact Dead Acridine orange + + + + + + direct count Animal-passage + + + + + - recovery Substrate uptake + + + + - - Direct viable count + + + - - - Acclimatization, + + - - - - plate count Standard plate count + - - - - - VIABLE SOMNICELL

V1YIEQRM
INCREASING TIME IN SURVIVAL CONDITIONS

The difference of apparent mortality may be observed in figure 4 between thermotolerant or fecal coliforms (CF) and fecal streptococci (SF). SURVIVAL IN THE WATER COLUMN The survival mechanisms of enteric bacteria in the water column have been the topic of many studies ; the main factors involved in increasing bacterial survival in the coastal zone are the supply of organic matter as nutrients or osmoprotectors, and the reduction of light'S lethal effect by turbidity (Martin and Bonnefont, 1986 ; Crane and Moore, 1986). Temperature also influences the increase or decrease of mortality in estuaries. Rhodes and Kator (1988) working on survival of E. coli and Salmonella spp. demonstrated that Salmonella spp. populations exhibited less mortality and stress than did E. coli at low temperatures 10 0C).
The role of organic nuztter on the salt-tolerance

Allochtonous enteric bacteria when entering the marine environment through waste-waters run-off, are subjected to an osmotic shock. To avoid dehydration, cells take up molecules (osmoprotectors) which act as osmotic balancing agents. It has been demonstrated that several compounds can be accumulated intracellularly by Enterobacteriaceae (E. coli, Salmonella, Klebsiella ...) : glycine-betaine (Csonka, 1981), K+ ions and glutamate (Measures, 1975), trehalose (Strom et al., 1986) for the most important. The ability of bacteria to induce such a mechanism may influence their later survival. Nevertheless, these mechanisms need energy, either for the membrane transport systems activity (K+, glycine-betaine,
Enteric bacteria survival factors 99

proline) or for the biosynthesis of osmoprotectors (trehalose, glutamate). In environments with large amounts of organic matter, bacteria could find both nutrients and osmoprotectors. Under this hypothesis, we studied increase of the salt-tolerance of Salmonella induced by estuarine waters. 18 strains of Salmonella were grown in sterile estuarine water (sampled in the Morlaix estuary), added to the mineral compounds of a minimal medium M63, at serial NaCI concentrations. Medium M63 made with distilled water was used as the control. We measured growth in each case, after 5 days at 15 C, and 1 day at 37 C. The difference showed the increase of the salt-tolerance induced by organic matter. The same experiment was carried out with filtered (0.22 J1Il1) waters, in order to determine the respective roles of

dissolved and particulate organic matter. Figure 5 shows that the greatest amount (23.5 mg 1-1 : water A) yielded a 10 g 1-1 NaCI increase of salt-tolerance for 89 % of the strains (at 37 0c) and for 72 % (at 15 0C). Whereas the second tested water (12.4 mg 1-1 : water B) allowed the same increase for only 22 % of the strains. These results are in good agreement with our previous study (Pommepuy et ai., 1991). The dissolved organic matter appeared to be the most effective (fig. 5), most likely because it is the most easily assimilated, either at 37 C or at 15 C. Even if a large amount of environmental organic matter increases the salt-tolerance of allochthonous bacteria, it must be kept in mind that its composition and nature are the most important factors.
100 00 CONCLUSION

The behavior of fecal bacteria is closely dependent on the environment's water or sediment quality. In coastal areas, fecal bacteria and pathogenic bacteria as Salmonella, are able to find necessary elements for life : nutrients and osmotic compounds enable them to endure high salinity. On the other hand, suspended matter drastically impairs the visual clarity of water and therefore, by light scattering, protects bacteria from a bactericidal sunlight effect. On Mediterranean coasts, oligotrophic water and high solar radiation due to the climate greatly diminish the survival time of fecal bacteria in surface water: 1'90 are very short 2 hours) at the surface; but in deep waters, in the same region, where the wastewaters plume is trapped under the thermocline, the 1'90 could be longer (several tens of hours). In the English Channel, waters and sediments are rich in organic matter ; in addition the cloudy system and high turbidity significantly increase fecal bacterial survival: T90 may be very long, from several tens to several hundreds of hours.

Some microbes are able to tolerate radioactivity and other toxic environments because they developed detoxification mechanisms that allow them to resist adverse environments without being damaged. These protective mechanisms increasingly are of great interest to scientists not only for developing innovative remediation strategies but also for creating novel biotechnological applications. As a recent example, researchers in Germany managed to produce highly stable and regular palladium (Pd) nanoparticles by harnessing the survival mechanism of bacteria found in uranium-polluted waste. These particles showed much improved catalytic activity and other new physical properties, which make them ideal for use as nanocatalysts or nanosensors. Back in 1997, a team of biologists from the Institute of Radiochemistry at the Forschungszentrum Rossendorf (FZR) in Dresden, Germany, discovered a microbe called Bacillus sphaericus JG-A12 in the waste of an uranium mining site. JG-A12 exhibits a high metal-binding capacity, indicating that it might provide a protective function by preventing the cellular uptake of heavy metals and radionuclides. The researchers working on interactions of actinides with biomolecular surfaces found that JG-A12 protects itself from the toxicity of uranium by selectively binding large amounts of the toxic metal on its protective protein surface layer (S-layer). The Slayers are surface structures of bacteria that form highly regular protein lattices, covering the whole cell. The lattice pores measure only a few nanometers.

Bacteria's Survival Mechanism

SHARE: Adjust text size:

Researchers reporting in the Journal of Medical Microbiology, discovered tha antibiotic resistance is not just a genetic feature of bacteria, and that in fact they have a second strategy of defense, known as persistence

(MDR)

This is the first time that researchers proved that there is an interaction between two mechanisms, that help bacteria survive in the fight against antibiotics, and this might a well be the first step towards finding an effective approach to treat multi-drug resistan infections

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a human pathogen that infects the body given the smallest occasion, being the cause of many hospital-acquired infections.

The worst part is that it can actually cause fatal infections in people suffering from cystic fibrosis

This bacterium is popular for its capacity to develop a very strong resistance against commonly-used antibiotic and it is nothing unusual for treatments to fail

The novelty came from scientists at the Center of Microbial and Plant Genetics, at the Katholieke Universitei Leuven, in Belgium, who discovered that as the bacterial population starts manifesting resistance to the antibioti fosfomycin, the number of persister cells isolated from Pseudomonas aeruginosa infections decreases

Persister bacterial cells are hyper-resistant to all antibiotics at once, temporarily they are able to survive normally lethal levels of antibiotics, without actually being genetically resistant to the drug

They are one of the main causes of treatment failure, but the problem is that the entire mechanism behind this strength is still unknown

Professor Jan Michiels, leader of the study, explained that persister cells are produced in low numbers, bu nevertheless make it almost impossible to completely remove the bug from the patient As "Our a result, eradication that of infections through may antibiotic also treatment the usually number takes of a long

time

work

shows

antibiotic

treatment

influence

persisters

formed.

Professor Michiels admitted that targeting persistence is an attractive option, and that ideally both susceptible and persistent cells would be targeted in a single therapy, but firstly we need to understand more about the interplay between genetic resistance and persistence to avoid stimulating one or the other

Unraveling the mechanism behind bacterial persistence is really important to enable us to optimize treatments of chronic bacterial infections.

So for now, co-administration therapies (in which drugs targeting non-essential cellular functions are combined with antibiotics) are under development, in order to treat MDR infections.

There are various mechanisms: 1) "Researchers at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a component of the National Institutes of Health, have discovered a survival mechanism in a common type of bacteria that can cause illness. The mechanism lets the bacteria protect itself by warding off attacks from antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), which are defense molecules sent by the body to kill bacteria. Bacteria are divided into two types, gram-positive and gram-negative, with the primary difference being the nature of the bacterial cell wall. Little is known about how gram-positive bacteria'such as those that can lead to food poisoning, skin disorders and toxic shock avoid being killed by AMPs. AMPs are made by virtually all groups of organisms, including amphibians, insects, several invertebrates and mammals, including humans." "Other well-known types of gram-positive bacteria include agents that cause anthrax, strep throat, flesh-eating disease and various types of food poisoning. In gram-negative bacteria'such as those that cause plague and salmonellosis a sensory and gene regulation system named PhoP/PhoQ protects invading bacteria, and scientists believe if they develop a better understanding of this system they could develop new drugs that are more effective at protecting people from infection. Likewise, now Dr. Otto and his research group are hoping for similar possibilities for grampositive bacteria with their discovery of aps," which stands for antimicrobial peptide sensor." Source and further information: http://www.news-medical.net/?id=26166

2) "Starvation-Induced Thermal Tolerance as a Survival Mechanism in a Psychrophilic Marine Bacterium" Source and further information: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=182334

3) "SAR11 has its own mechanism to use sunlight energy that does not involve chlorophyll. Rather, it uses retinal, the same protein used by the eyes of animals and humans to detect light, and serves as a "proton pump" to energize the cell membrane." Source and further information: http://www.innovations-report.de/html/berichte/biowissenschaften_chemie/bericht-51255.html

4) "The idea of immortality has sparked human interest for thousands of years so it would be extremely ironic if tiny creatures we cannot even see unaided had achieved this goal. Many microbiologists think that they have they believe that a bacterium will not die unless it is killed (by predation, starvation, environmental change or physical damage). Even the last three of these are not certain, as many bacteria have evolved survival mechanisms to allow them to withstand adverse environmental changes and starvation." Source and further information: http://www.geocities.com/bacterial_ed/Lecture_Wild.doc Further information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacteria
o o o o
Share your answer...

Like Report No comments. Post one | Permalink

1033109

Want to attach an image to your answer? Click here.

Answer Question

Did this answer your question?

If not, then ask a new question or create a poll.

More Questions.

Additional questions in this category.

Read more: What is the survival mechanism of bacteria, at the individual and population levels? | Answerbag http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/1033109#ixzz1w4ro5pGA