The use of the Vibrio harveyi luminescence mutagenicity assay as a rapid test for preliminary assessment of mutagenic pollution of marine sediments

• Authors: B. Podgorska , K. Pazdro , G. Wegrzyn
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Mutagenic pollution of the natural environment is currently one of the most serious environmental problems. It includes the pollution of marine sediments. Therefore, rapid detection of the presence of mutagens is an important issue. Recently, we have developed a novel microbiological assay for rapid assessment of mutagenicity of samples from the natural environment. This assay is based on bioluminescence of a mutant Vibrio harveyi strain, and was shown to be useful in testing samples of marine water and plant tissues. Here we demonstrate the usefulness of this assay in preliminary assessment of mutagenic pollution of marine sediments. Mutagenicity of environmental samples taken from the Baltic Sea, is documented and compared here with a commercially available standard sediment sample (IAEA 383), which contains known amounts of mutagenic compounds. The whole procedure, from obtaining a sample in the laboratory to getting final results, is very short (less than 4 h).

Keywords

EN

BIOLUMINESCENCE; MARINE SEDIMENT; MICROBIOLOGICAL MUTAGENICITY; MUTAGENIC POLLUTION; VIBRIO HARVEYI

Discipline

• GENETICS: GENETICS

• Publisher: Institute of Plant Genetics, Polish Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Journal of Applied Genetics
• Year: 2007
• Volume: 48
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 409-412

Contributors

author

B. Podgorska

author

K. Pazdro

author

G. Wegrzyn

• Document Type: ARTICLE
• Publication order reference: G. Wegrzyn, Department of Molecular Biology, University of Gdansk, Kladki 24, 80?822 Gdansk, Poland