[Studies on motile-Aeromonas infection: 2). Development of a bacteriophage typing system for motile Aeromonas]

We succeeded in isolating Aeromonas-susceptible phages from river water and mud after a few years (1983-1985) of painstaking effort. For the first time in Japan, we investigated phagetypes of the bacterial strains isolated. The results obtained are summarized as follows: 1) Aeromonas-susceptible phages were isolated from 82 (40.1%) of 195 samples of river water and from 23 (25.6%) of 90 samples of river mud. By the cross-matching test of the phages isolated from the 105 samples, these were classified into 13 type groups (Groups I-XIII). 2) When 594 Aeromonas strains isolated from river water, lake water, river mud and fresh-water fish were examined using the phage group patterns developed by us, 129 (21.7%) strains classified into these phagetypes. Phagetyping was possible for 11 (15.5%) of the 71 strains isolated from river and lake water, for 29 (35.4%) of the 82 strains from river mud and for 89 (20.2%) of the 441 strains from fresh-water fish. By bacterial species, phagetyping was possible for 53 (51.5%) of the 103 strains of A. hydrophila. 21 (7.2%) of the 292 strains of A. sobria, 13 (8.8%) of the 148 strains of A. caviae and 42 (82.4%) of the 51 strains of Aeromonas spp.. Especially the phages classified as Groups I, IV and VI amounted to the majority. Thus we succeeded in isolating Aeromonas-susceptible phages which could be classified into Groups I-XIII. The results suggested the possibility of utilizing this phagetyping for analysis of the ecological distribution of genus Aeromonas.