Coastal aqualic environments often suffer from anthropogenic pressure, posing severe threals lo human health related to presence of pollutants in seawaters. Recent trends in environmental monitoring aiming at public health preservation highlight the need of a deep revision of the standards up to now used in the assessment of seawater quality, focusing the importance of new bacterial indicators, more reliable than those previously used, in the contro I of short and large scale-occurring pollution phenomena. Selected bacteri al species (Escherichia coli) or related parameters are currently included in monitoring programs of marine environmelltal quality; they allow to track the occurrence and evolution of bacterial pollution events, and prevent human health risks related to the use of polluted waters. Moreover, several limitations intrinsic to culture methods traditionally used to detect bacterial pathogens (long response times, low specificity, high costs) confirrn their inadequacy for coastal monitoring, stressing the need for updated standard analytical procedures. In response to this, several research efforts at the CNR - IAMC have recelltly been devoted to improve technical equipmellts and methodologies for the assessment of microbiological quality of seawater. The cbapter reviews recent advances in coastal microbial pollution rnonitoring achieved in the framework of projects funded by the Italian Ministry for Scientific Rescarch, addrcssing the detection and enumeration of Escherichia coli in seawater as an indicator of faecal pollution. A summary of the innovative methodologies (the fluorescent antibody method the P-glucuronidase assay and Real time PCR) developed and optimised at the LAMe laboratory for monitoring bathing waters is reported, which allowed thc high-resolution quantitative measurement of target bacterial molecules and accurate quantification of faecal pollution phenomena. These methods provided results significantly related to plate counts within a few hours from sampling, highlighting the main advantages (rapidity and specificity) related to the detection of bacterial antigens or molecules as markers of faecal pollulion. New combined fluorescence-viability staining protocols were also set up, capable to detect bacteria which persist into seawater under different physiological states, maintain ing intact living properties, and therefore have a pathogenic potential. The proposed methods proved to be rapid and specific analytic approaches for the screening of coastal areas with various degrees of pollution; therefore they offer new interesting perspectives to prevenl outbreaks of waterbome diseases. Data obtained by these new analytical procedures encourage the use of E. coli or related parameters as successful tools for early waming of seawater bacterial pollution.
Advances in marine bacterial pollution monitoring
Caruso G;Crisafi E;
2008
Abstract
Coastal aqualic environments often suffer from anthropogenic pressure, posing severe threals lo human health related to presence of pollutants in seawaters. Recent trends in environmental monitoring aiming at public health preservation highlight the need of a deep revision of the standards up to now used in the assessment of seawater quality, focusing the importance of new bacterial indicators, more reliable than those previously used, in the contro I of short and large scale-occurring pollution phenomena. Selected bacteri al species (Escherichia coli) or related parameters are currently included in monitoring programs of marine environmelltal quality; they allow to track the occurrence and evolution of bacterial pollution events, and prevent human health risks related to the use of polluted waters. Moreover, several limitations intrinsic to culture methods traditionally used to detect bacterial pathogens (long response times, low specificity, high costs) confirrn their inadequacy for coastal monitoring, stressing the need for updated standard analytical procedures. In response to this, several research efforts at the CNR - IAMC have recelltly been devoted to improve technical equipmellts and methodologies for the assessment of microbiological quality of seawater. The cbapter reviews recent advances in coastal microbial pollution rnonitoring achieved in the framework of projects funded by the Italian Ministry for Scientific Rescarch, addrcssing the detection and enumeration of Escherichia coli in seawater as an indicator of faecal pollution. A summary of the innovative methodologies (the fluorescent antibody method the P-glucuronidase assay and Real time PCR) developed and optimised at the LAMe laboratory for monitoring bathing waters is reported, which allowed thc high-resolution quantitative measurement of target bacterial molecules and accurate quantification of faecal pollution phenomena. These methods provided results significantly related to plate counts within a few hours from sampling, highlighting the main advantages (rapidity and specificity) related to the detection of bacterial antigens or molecules as markers of faecal pollulion. New combined fluorescence-viability staining protocols were also set up, capable to detect bacteria which persist into seawater under different physiological states, maintain ing intact living properties, and therefore have a pathogenic potential. The proposed methods proved to be rapid and specific analytic approaches for the screening of coastal areas with various degrees of pollution; therefore they offer new interesting perspectives to prevenl outbreaks of waterbome diseases. Data obtained by these new analytical procedures encourage the use of E. coli or related parameters as successful tools for early waming of seawater bacterial pollution.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.