• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.118-126
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• 1986

Vibrio vulnificus is a recently recognized halophilic organism that nay cause serious human infections. Patients infected with V. vulnificus often have a history of exposure to the sea, suggesting that the organism may be common inhabitant of marine environment. The purpose of this experiment is to investigate the distribution and bacteriological characteristics of V. vulnificus. The strain used in this experiment was isolated from sea water and sea products such as common octopus (Octopus variabilis), ark shell (Anadara broughtonii), blue crab (Ericheir japonica), and sea squirt (Synthia roretzi) collected in Pusan area from July to October in 1985. V. vulnificus was frequently isolated in August when temperature of sea water was around $26^{\circ}C$ and rarely isolated in October when temperature of sea water was around $18.5^{\circ}C$. The distinctive biochemical characteristics of V. vulnificus were ONPG hydrolysis positive and fermented lactose and not grown in peptone water contained $8\%$ NaCl. The optical density at 660 nm of the growth of V. vulnificus was reached maximum level after 8 hours of culture at $35^{\circ}C$ in brain heart infusion broth but that of V. vulnificus was little increased at $15^{\circ}C$ for 14 hours. Optimum temperature and pH for the growth of V. vulnificus were around $35^{\circ}C$ and 8.0. The specific growth rate and the generation time of V. vulnificus isolated from the samples were $1.21\;hr^{-1}$, 34 min at $35^{\circ}C$ and $0.61\;hr^{-1}$, 69 min at $25^{\circ}C$, respectively. V. vulnificus did not grow on eosin-methylene-blue agar, salmonella-shigella agar, deoxycholate agar but grew well on Endo agar, xylose-lysine-deoxycholate agar and hektoen enteric agar. On Endo agar, the colonies of V. vulnificus were red and achieved a diameter of 2 to 4 mm as a feature enabling differentiation of V. vulnificus from other Vibrio spp. V. vulnificus grow well on TCBS agar forming green colonies. V. vulnificus refrigerated at $4^{\circ}C$ exhibited a linear decline of its viablity as 1 log cycle in every 16 hours storage, while V. vulnificus freezed at $-18^{\circ}C$ almost became extinct.