Aptness of Escherichia coli host strain CB390 to detect total coliphages in Colombia.
Claudia Campos, Javier Méndez, Camilo Venegas, Luisa Fernanda Riaño, Paula Castaño, Natalia Leiton, Eliana Riaño
Author Information
Claudia Campos: Department of Microbiology. Faculty of Sciences, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Carrera 7 No. 40 - 62, Bogotá D.C., Colombia.
Javier Méndez: Department of Genetics, Microbiology and Statistics. Faculty of Biology, University of Barcelona, Av. Diagonal 643, 08028, Barcelona, Spain. jmendez@ub.edu.
Camilo Venegas: Department of Microbiology. Faculty of Sciences, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Carrera 7 No. 40 - 62, Bogotá D.C., Colombia.
Luisa Fernanda Riaño: Department of Microbiology. Faculty of Sciences, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Carrera 7 No. 40 - 62, Bogotá D.C., Colombia.
Paula Castaño: Department of Microbiology. Faculty of Sciences, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Carrera 7 No. 40 - 62, Bogotá D.C., Colombia.
Natalia Leiton: Department of Microbiology. Faculty of Sciences, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Carrera 7 No. 40 - 62, Bogotá D.C., Colombia.
Eliana Riaño: Department of Microbiology. Faculty of Sciences, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Carrera 7 No. 40 - 62, Bogotá D.C., Colombia.
Fecal bacteria have been used for more than a century as indicators of fecal contamination in water. In recent years, the monitoring of somatic and F-specific coliphages has been gradually included in guidelines and regulations as an additional parameter to reinforce water safety. The Escherichia coli host strain CB390 was tailored to detect both somatic and F-specific coliphages in a single test. The efficacy of this strain for bacteriophage detection, previously evaluated in Western Europe and North America, was assessed here for the first time in South America. The detection of somatic and F-specific coliphages by the strain CB390, as well as by standardized methods, was performed in drinking and river water and municipal and abattoir wastewaters. No statistical difference was found in the numbers of total coliphages detected by strain CB390 and the sum of somatic and F-specific coliphages determined separately by the standardized ISO methods. The data presented here provide further validation of the effectiveness of the host strain E. coli CB390 for the detection of total coliphages in waters in a single test and demonstrate its suitability for application in upper-middle income countries of the Americas (World Bank category).
