''Vibrio natriegens'' is a

Gram-negative Gram-negative bacteria are bacteria that do not retain the crystal violet stain used in the Gram staining method of bacterial differentiation. They are characterized by their cell envelopes, which are composed of a thin peptidoglycan cell wall ...

marine bacterium Marine prokaryotes are marine bacteria and marine archaea. They are defined by their habitat as prokaryotes that live in marine environments, that is, in the saltwater of seas or oceans or the brackish water of coastal estuaries. All cellular ...

. It was first isolated from

salt marsh A salt marsh or saltmarsh, also known as a coastal salt marsh or a tidal marsh, is a coastal ecosystem in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and open saltwater or brackish water that is regularly flooded by the tides. It is dominated ...

mud. It is a salt-loving organism (

halophile The halophiles, named after the Greek word for "salt-loving", are extremophiles that thrive in high salt concentrations. While most halophiles are classified into the domain Archaea, there are also bacterial halophiles and some eukaryotic species, ...

) requiring about 2% NaCl for growth. It reacts well to the presence of sodium ions which appear to stimulate growth in ''Vibrio'' species, to stabilise the cell membrane, and to affect sodium-dependent transport and mobility. Under optimum conditions, and all nutrients provided, the doubling time of ''V. natriegens'' can be less than 10 minutes. ''V. natriegens'' is able to successfully live and rapidly divide in its coastal areas due its large range of metabolic fuel. Recent research has displayed that ''Vibrio natriegens'' has a flexible metabolism, which allows it to consume a large variety of carbon substrates, reduce nitrates, and even fix nitrogen from the atmosphere under nitrogen-limiting and anaerobic conditions. In the laboratory, the growth medium can be easily changed, thus affecting the growth rate of a culture. ''V. natriegens'' is commonly found in

estuarine mud Bay mud consists of thick deposits of soft, unconsolidated silty clay, which is saturated with water; these soil layers are situated at the bottom of certain estuaries, which are normally in temperate regions that have experienced cyclical glaci ...

Aquaculture and antibiotic resistance

Many strains of ''Vibrio,'' including ''natriegens'', are pathogenic against farmed aquacultures such as the

abalone Abalone ( or ; via Spanish , from Rumsen ''aulón'') is a common name for any of a group of small to very large marine gastropod molluscs in the family (biology), family Haliotidae. Other common name In biology, a common name of a taxon o ...

and have recently resulted in destruction of farmed abalones when aquacultures get infected. In response, fishers have taken to inoculating tanks with large amounts of

antibiotic An antibiotic is a type of antimicrobial substance active against bacteria. It is the most important type of antibacterial agent for fighting bacterial infections, and antibiotic medications are widely used in the treatment and prevention of ...

s, which has resulted in ''Vibrio natriegens'' developing a potent antibiotic resistance to many drugs. In a recent study, the AbY-1805 strain of ''Vibrio natriegens'' was shown to be completely resistant against 17 of the 32 tested antibiotics and at least partially resistant against 22 of the 32.

Biochemical characteristics of ''V. natriegens''

Colony, morphological, physiological, and biochemical characteristics of ''Vibrio natriegens'' are shown in the Table below. Note: + = Positive, – =Negative, V =Variable (+/–)

Biotechnological uses

Owing to its rapid growth rate, ability to grow on inexpensive carbon sources, and capacity to secrete proteins into the growth media, efforts are underway to leverage this species as a host for molecular biology and biotechnology applications. Recently, ''V. natriegens'' crude extract has been shown by multiple research groups to be a promising platform for cell-free expression. Scientists are also hoping that ''Vibrio natriegens'', with its incredible growth speed, will make microbial experiments in outer space, where time is an extremely valuable asset, much quicker. Interestingly, it has been shown that ''Vibrio natriegens'', despite its incredibly quick doubling speed on Earth, might grow even faster in space. A recent experiment displayed that after 24 hours of growth the ''Vibrio'' cells grown in zero gravity were 60 times denser than those grown in full gravity, possibly attributable to an extended exponential growth phase in low-gravity conditions.

References

External links

Type strain of ''Vibrio natriegens''
at Bac''Dive'' - the Bacterial Diversity Metadatabase
University of Marburg 2018 iGEM team
Vibrionales Marine microorganisms {{gammaproteobacteria-stub