JOURNAL OF PREVENTIVE MEDICINE AND HYGIENE 2006; 47: 100-104 100 Introduction Vibrio fischeri, Vibrio splendidus and Photobacterium phosphoreum are among the earliest known non patho- genic species of vibrios. They were described by the dutch microbiologist Martinus Willem Beijerinck, around 1900. The genus Vibrio includes several taxa, not all detrimental to humans. Overall, more than 70 species are included into the class of Gammaproteobac- teria and four different families, namely Enterovibri- onaceae, Photobacteriaceae, Salinivibrionaceae and Vibrionaceae. Vibrios are gram negative, usually motile rods, prevalent in the aquatic environment. Noteworthy, some species display ability to establish interesting forms of commensalism and symbiosis with marine an- imals such as the Hawaiian squid Euprymna scolopes and the aquatic arthropod Gerris spinolae; others are found associated with plants, corals, shrimps, seagrass, sponges, zooplankton, fish and molluscs [1-3]. Cholera is an old known, infectious disease caused by the aquatic bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The disease is characterised by acute diarrhoeic episodes with mas- sive loss of fluids and electrolytes, vomiting and leg cramps. It is generally recognised that infection spreads by ingestion of waters and foods contaminated with faeces containing the bacterium or by accidental swal- lowing of microrganisms, present onto various envi- ronmental matrices. When cholera hit Florence, in 1854, during the Asiatic Cholera Pandemic of 1846- 1863, the Italian physician Filippo Pacini, undertook meticulous histological observations that eventually led him to describe a comma-shaped bacillus, which he called “Vibrio”. His discovery was granted prominence only several years later when, in 1965, the internation- al committee on nomenclature adopted the name Vibrio cholerae Pacini 1854 for the etiologic agent of cholera. During the last 185 years, seven, nearly global pan- demics have been described. The Vibrio responsible for the seventh pandemic, now in progress, is known as Vibrio cholerae O1, biotype El Tor. The beginning of the current pandemic is reckoned associated with an outbreak in Indonesia, in 1961; the pandemic has then moved to Africa and South America [4]. In 1992, a new serogroup, O139, appeared in southern Asia where it has then become endemic. According to some Authors, this novel serogroup threatens to start the next pandemic [5]. Other than cholerae, reckoned hu- man pathogenic vibrios are: V. parahaemolyticus, V. vulnificus and, secondarily, Grimontia hollisae, Photo- bacterium damselae, V. alginolyticus, V. cincinnatien- sis, V. fluvialis, V. furnisii, V. harveyi, V. metschnikovii, V. mimicus. Most of these species were found to conta- minate commonly eaten seafood, like shrimp, squid, crab, cockles and mussels [6]. 16S rRNA, flanking sequences of the cytotoxin-he- molysin virulence gene vvhA, pR72H DNA fragment and 16S-23S rRNA intergenic spacer region have been proven effective for the classification of vibrios [7-9]. Biomolecular, genomic analyses, of either clinical or environmental isolates, are performed, at present, by amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP), flu- orescence in situ hybridisation (FISH), amplified ribo- ORIGINAL ARTICLE Bioinformatics and microbial biodiversity: analysis of vibrios by the GenEnv system A. PAPARINI, D. SANTONI, V. ROMANO SPICA Department of Health Sciences, Public Health Unit; University Institute of Movement Sciences (IUSM), Rome, Italy Summary Key words Vibrio • Bioinformatics • Public health Sequence-based approaches to prokaryotic systematics and typ- ing represent a modern and promising strategy in epidemiol- ogy and environmental microbiology. GenEnv, a database-dri- ven system for bacterial typing, was developed in order to pro- vide user friendly tools for supporting biomolecular analysis of bacteria. The family Vibrionaceae represents a heterogeneous taxon of aquatic microrganisms, harbouring a plethora of genomes currently analyzed by different molecular techniques. Under the query “Vibrio”, GenEnv retrieved 256 organisms, included in a total number of 19 families. Overall, 548 sequences, comprising 16S rRNA (n = 402), rpoB (n = 1), gyrB (n = 145) were available. In addition, GenEnv system allowed primer design, homology analysis and restriction maps, for immediate applications to the study of Vibrionaceae.