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dc.contributor.convenorJohn Graham
dc.contributor.authorStratton, Helen
dc.contributor.authorMatthews, Ben
dc.contributor.authorHiggins, Jennifer
dc.date.accessioned2017-05-03T11:27:57Z
dc.date.available2017-05-03T11:27:57Z
dc.date.issued2008
dc.date.modified2013-07-12T01:39:16Z
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10072/33583
dc.description.abstractBiological water quality testing relies on the standard measurement of faecal contamination determined by culturing cells of thermotolerant coliform bacteria of faecal origin. Escherichia coli represents over 96.8% of thermotolerant coliforms and is the key indicator of faecal contamination. However the presence of E. coli in a water sample does not provide information about the source of contamination and is not always an effective indicator of disease risk to humans. Microbial source tracking is a developing field that involves using a specific marker such as variation in a gene, antibiotic resistance or carbon source utilization patterns to identify the host of a pathogenic or indicator organism. Genetic source tracking techniques rely on sequence differences to distinguish between strains with the assumption that the differences arise through host specificity. Therefore an E.coli from a human host will have a different genetic profile to that from other animals. The ?-glucuronidase (gusA) gene found in E. coli is one gene that has shown promise as possible genetic marker. This gene was analysed in 320 E. coli isolates that were collected from several water bodies, birds, mammals, marsupials, reptiles and humans. Phylogenetic analysis of a 500 base pair fragment of the gusA gene from these isolates revealed two distinct clades of E. coli isolates, one belonging to the humans and the other to the animals. Almost 80% of all of the known human isolates grouped in the human clade with an acceptable level of 11.4% false positives. This result suggests that the gusA gene in E. coli may be very useful in determining if faecal contamination is of human or animal origin. A description of the use of genetic markers for microbial source tracking, comparisons to other methods and the information this approach can provide from a water quality risk assessment aspect will be discussed.
dc.description.publicationstatusYes
dc.languageEnglish
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisherNo data provided
dc.publisher.urihttp://www.awa.asn.au/
dc.relation.ispartofstudentpublicationN
dc.relation.ispartofconferencenameAustralian Water Association Regional Conference
dc.relation.ispartofconferencetitleThe Challenge of Change
dc.relation.ispartofdatefrom2008-11-21
dc.relation.ispartofdateto2008-11-23
dc.relation.ispartoflocationSanctuary Cove, Queensland
dc.rights.retentionY
dc.subject.fieldofresearchMicrobiology not elsewhere classified
dc.subject.fieldofresearchEnvironmental Monitoring
dc.subject.fieldofresearchcode060599
dc.subject.fieldofresearchcode050206
dc.titleWhere did that bug in my water come from? How do we know?
dc.typeConference output
dc.type.descriptionE2 - Conferences (Non Refereed)
dc.type.codeE - Conference Publications
gro.rights.copyrightSelf-archiving of the author-manuscript version is not yet supported by this publisher. Please refer to the Conference link for access to the definitive, published version.
gro.date.issued2008
gro.hasfulltextNo Full Text
gro.griffith.authorStratton, Helen M.
gro.griffith.authorMatthews, Ben S.


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    Contains papers delivered by Griffith authors at national and international conferences.

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