Full Description

In this study, several simple, sensitive, rapid and affordable methods were developed, optimized and evaluated by application to field samples for detection of somatic and male-specific coliphages in water. The most simple, affordable and sensitive method was the newly developed enrichment presence-absence method, which detected low levels of somatic and male-specific coliphages in 1-liter volumes of water in less than 24 hours at a cost of less than $20 per sample. It can be used to quantify coliphage concentrations in water by enriching coliphages in several different sample volumes and computing a coliphage concentration as a Most Probable Number (MPN). Of the methods to detect coliphages, the single agar layer method was the most sensitive, but is limited to sample volumes of 100 ml or less. For enumerating coliphages in sample volumes of 1 liter, three alternative filter methods were evaluated. Of these, the most effective was a membrane filter adsorption-elution method followed by assay of the resulting concentrated sample by the double agar layer plaque assay. The method gave consistently more frequent and greater recoveries than the other two filter methods tested. Results of these studies indicate that simple, sensitive, rapid, reliable and affordable methods are now available to detect somatic and male-specific coliphages in 1-liter volumes of groundwater and other waters.

Product Details

Published: 01/01/1998 ISBN(s): 0898679796 Number of Pages: 13File Size: 1 file , 78 KB