Vibrio Laboratory

Vibrio species

Research Scientist: Dr. Swapan K. Banerjee
Bureau of Microbial Hazards, Health Canada
swapan.banerjee@hc-sc.gc.ca

Research Technical Support: Laurène Bakouche

Research Activity:

Vibrio species are Gram-negative, non-sporulating, motile and curved rods. They are generally mesophilic, facultative anerobes, and differ by fermentative metabolism which result in the evolution of diverse species. Vibrios are highly abundant in aquatic environment, such as estuaries, coastal waters and sediments, and aquaculture settings worldwide. Vibrio species are important in aquaculture, mostly because of their capacity to infect, or colonize, a wide range of aquatic organisms such as shrimp, several fish species, molluscs and zooplankton, and invade human intestinal track through seafood. Vibrios preferring high salinity for growth are termed halophilic. The main species of Vibrio that are of concern to food microbiologists are the halophilic species, V. parahaemolyticus and V. vulnificus, and the choleragenic species, V. cholerae. Research interests encompass detection and enumeration of the targeted species associated with seafood, and the antimicrobial resistance pattern observed in the seafood-borne isolates for quality assurance and health risk assessment.

Current Research Activities:

  1. Impact of climate change on the proliferation and pathogenicity of Vibrio species in the marine ecosystem and seafood.
  2. Thermal inactivation and related intervention studies leading to educational advisories for the consumers to reduce the risk of illness due to Vibrio species.
  3. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in aquaculture and seafood: assessment of prevalence and risk to support policy development and regulatory intervention.

Vibrio reference service of Canada: The national Vibrio Reference Service (VRS) under the auspices of Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada is established to provide comprehensive reference and research laboratory services, and develop next generation laboratory methodologies to enhance the national surveillance, clinical diagnosis and outbreak response capabilities.
Affiliations: Membership in the following international organizations:

Publications / Presentations:

25 peer-reviewed articles encompassing various fields (clinical microbiology, site-directed mutagenesis, replication and antimicrobial resistance, and food microbiology), and 35 conference abstracts; [February, 2011].

Following are some of the recent Publications/Abstracts/Conference presentations relevant to vibrios:

Banerjee, S. K., L. Bakouche and J. M. Farber. Presence of Multidrug-Resistant Vibrio species Isolated from Molluscan Shellfish in the Coastal Environments of Canada. International Meeting on Emerging Diseases and Surveillance (IMED2011), Vienna, Austria, Feb. 4-7, (2011).

Banerjee, S. K., L. Bakouche and J. M. Farber. Antimicrobial Resistance Patterns of Vibrio species Isolated from the Coastal Environments of Canada. FFSNR Meeting, Ottawa, Canada, Nov. 3-4, (2010).

Banerjee, S.K. and J. M. Farber. Susceptibility of Vibrio parahaemolyticus strains to Tris-dependant DNA degradation during pulsed-field gel electrophoresis. J. Clin. Microbiol. 47, 870-871 (2009).

Oudit, D, L. Bakouche and S. Banerjee. Towards safe preparation of molluscan shellfish-Thermal inactivation of Vibrio parahaemolyticus strain NY477 in artificial seawater. Health Canada Science Forum, Ottawa, Canada, Nov. 16-17, (2009)

S. Lamhoujeb, S. Banerjee, C. Bin Kingombe, B. Dixon, A. Gill, F. Pagotto, A. Reid, K. Mattison. Simultaneous concentration of different pathogen classes from meat. FFSNR Meeting, Ottawa, Canada, Nov. 4-5, (2009).

Banerjee, S. K., L. Bakouche and J. M. Farber. Biodiversity and Structure of the Coastal Vibrio Community in Canada: A potential paradigm for tracking evolutionary responses to climate change and its impact on seafood safety. FFSNR Meeting, Ottawa, Canada, Nov. 4-5, (2009).

Oudit, D, L. Bakouche and S. Banerjee. Towards safe preparation of molluscan shellfish-Thermal inactivation of Vibrio parahaemolyticus strain NY477 in artificial seawater. FFSNR Meeting, Ottawa, Canada, Nov. 4-5, (2009).

Banerjee, S. K., and J. M. Farber. Abundance and distribution of halophilic Vibrio species in molluscan shellfish harvested in Canada: Impact on food safety and consumer health. Health Canada Science Forum, Ottawa, Canada, Oct. 8-9, (2008)

Banerjee, S. K., and J. M. Farber. Abundance and distribution of halophilic Vibrio species in molluscan shellfish harvested in Canada: Impact on food safety and consumer health. The Fifth Open SEAFOODplus Conference, Copenhagen, Denmark, June 8-10, (2008).

Banerjee, S.K., F. J. Pagotto and J. M. Farber: Prevalence and molecular diversity of Vibrio parahaemolyticus associated with molluscs harvested in Canada. MS# 71, ed. P. Busby, the Royal Society of New Zealand, (2009), Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Molluscan Shellfish Safety, Blenheim, New Zealand, March 2007, p 185-192. Published online 15 May, (2007).

Banerjee, S. K., F. Pagotto and J. M. Farber. The use of automated ribotyping for characterization of Vibrio parahaemolyticus in seafoods harvested in Canada. VIBRIO2007, 2nd International conference on The Biology of Vibrios, Paris, France, Nov. 28 to Dec.1, (2007).

Banerjee, S. K., F. J. Pagotto and J.M. Farber. Molecular diversity of Vibrio parahaemolyticus associated with mollusks harvested in Canada. Health Canada Science Forum, Ottawa, Canada, Nov. 8-9, (2007)

Banerjee, S. K., F. Pagotto and J. M. Farber. The use of automated ribotyping for characterization of Vibrio parahaemolyticus in seafoods harvested in Canada. FFSNR Meeting, Winnipeg, Canada, Oct. 18 -19, (2007).

Banerjee, S. K., F. Pagotto and J. M. Farber. Prevalence of Vibrio species in shellfish harvested from Canada: Genotypic and phenotypic characterization of Vibrio parahaemolyticus isolated from molluscs and from clinical sources in Canada. 6th International Conference of Molluscan Shellfish Safety (ICMSS 2007), Blenheim, New Zealand, March 18 - 23, (2007).

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