Culture -independent Pathogenic Bacterial Communities in Bottled Mineral Water

Abstract

Bottled mineral water (BMW) is an alternative to mains water and consider it to be better and safer. Access to safe BMW from the bacteria involving potential health hazard is essential to health. Cultivation-independent technique PCR-based single-strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP) for genetic profiling of PCR-amplified 16S rRNA genes was performed using Com primer set targeting the 16S rRNA genes for detection of pathogenic bacteria in bottled mineral water from the final product of six factories for bottled mineral drinking water in Wadi El-natron region- Egypt. These factories use often ozone technology to treat large quantities of water because of its effectiveness in purifying and conditioning water. A total of 27 single products were isolated from the profiles by PCR re-amplification and cloning. Sequence analysis of 27 SSCP bands revealed that the 16S rRNA sequences were clustered into seven operational taxonomic units (OTUs) and the compositions of the communities of the six samples were all common. The results showed that most communities from phyla Alphaproteobacteria and certainly in the Sphingomonas sp . Culture-independent approaches produced complementary information, thus generating a more accurate view for the bacterial community in the BMW, particularly in the disinfection step, as it constitutes the final barrier before BMW distribution to the consumer