Genetic analysis in vibrio.

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses genetic analysis in Vibrio . Bacteria of the genus Vibrio are gram-negative, straight or curved rods, capable of both respiration and fermentation, and most have been isolated from freshwater, estuarine, or marine environments where they exist as free-living forms or in association with mammals, fish, or other organisms. Interest in developing methods for genetic analysis of pathogenic Vibrio has been particularly intense, and analysis has focused on elements of pathogenesis, such as toxins, hemolysins, and other virulence factors and on antigenic determinants exploited for the production of vaccines. Refined genetic techniques have been developed for the E1 Tor and classic biotypes of Vibrio cholerae , which cause diarrheal disease in epidemic proportions in humans. Considerable progress on genetic analysis has been made with strains of Vibrio parahaemolyticus , a major cause of seafood poisoning, and with Vibrio anguillarum , which is a pathogen of fish. A broad collection of genetic tools including conjugation, transduction, transformation, recombinant DNA manipulation for cloning, sequencing, and expression, transposon mutagenesis, and gene fusion construction have been applied to the Vibrio group as a whole. The chapter outlines the advances in applying these various categories of genetic analysis to particular species of Vibrio .