The new logo for VetBact, which was obtained by streaking a bovine blood agar plate with Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

New logo. The old logo for VetBact has been replaced by the one shown in the figure. A corresponding favicon has been added to the website as suggested by one of our students. The same logo is now used for both the English and the Swedish version of VetBact.

Other updates. The lists of Terms and Growth media in VetBact have recently been updated and several new posts have been added. The bacterial pages for Clostridium botulinum, Escherichia coli, Neisseria gonorrhoeae and Staphylococcus epidermidis have been updated. By the way, can anyone explain why the Staphylococcus epidermidis page in VetBact has become the most visited page for several weeks during this spring? There are almost three times more visitors on this page than on number two (Clostridium septicum) in the list.

Scanning electron micrograph of Clostridium botulinum type C/D, strain BKT015925. Note the flagella, which are clearly visible in both images. The length of the scale bar is equivalent to 4 µm.
Image: Hanna Skarin (SVA) and Leif Ljung (BMC).

Many bacteria produce so-called exotoxins. Some of nature’s most potent toxins are found among these. The lethal dose for humans of e.g. the botulinum toxin is only 1-2 ng (1 ng = 0.000 000 001 g) per kg body weight at intraveneous administration. Thus, the botulinum toxin is approximately 6 000 000 times more toxic than the rattle snake venom.

Scanning electron micrographs of Clostridium botulinum type C/D have been included in VetBact and the information on the bacterial pages of all four (I-IV) phenotypic groups of C. botulinum has been updated.

Kaggen giving a lecture on VetBact for veterinary students, 25 September 2012.
Photo: Staffan Tamm/VetBact.org

VetBact is a database containing information about 215 bacterial species of interest in veterinary medicine. On February 12, Kaggen (Karl-Erik Johansson) and Staffan Tamm will present VetBact in “Långskeppet”, SVA at 14:00 to 14:45, for the staff of SVA. The recently introduced modules VetBactBlog, VetBactQuiz and VetBactLab will be presented as well as some other new features of VetBact. VetBactLab is a module by which virtual experiments can be performed.

Gram staining of Trueperella pyogenes (Arcanobacterium pyogenes).

A new name has again been proposed  for the bacterium known as Arcanobacterium pyogenes. This bacterium has also been referred to as Corynebacterium pyogenes and Actinomyces pyogenes. The proposed new name is Trueperella pyogenes and the reason for introducing this new genus is that genus Arcanobacterium is not monophyletic. It consists of two distinct lines of descent which don’t share a common ancestor.

The genus name Trueperella has been proposed in honor of the German microbiologist Hans Georg Trüper.

Trueperella pyogenes may cause abscesses, mastitis, pneumonia etc. in ruminants and in pigs and is of great importance in veterinary medicine.

Reference: Yassin AF, Hupfer H, Siering C & Schumann P. 2011. Comparative chemotaxonomic and phylogenetic studies on the genus Arcanobacterium Collins et al. 1982 emend. Lehnen et al. 2006: proposal for Trueperella gen. nov. and emended description of the genus Arcanobacterium. Int. J. Syst. Evol. Microbiol., 61:1265-1274.

Thank you Frida (KV, VH-fak., SLU), you made us aware of the name change.

Streptococcus uberis cultivated on A, SELMA and B, SELMA Plus plates. Image: Karl-Erik Johansson (SLU), Fereshteh Banihashem (SVA) & Helén Mönnig (SVA).

In Sweden, the proportion of S. uberis induced acute clinical mastitis constituted 11% over the past 10 years. SELMA and SELMA Plus plates are used for cultivation of milk samples from suspected mastitis cases. It is often possible to make a preliminary diagnosis from the results. Note that S. uberis is only growing in the sector with bovine blood agar with esculine.

Gram staining of Bordetella bronchiseptica at two different degrees of magnification.

Bordetella bronchiseptica is an impotant bacterium in veterinary medicine. This bacterium cause primary and secondary airway infections in dogs and pigs. The old images on the bacterial page of B. bronchiseptica have been replaced by images of higher quality and some new ones have also been added. Colonies of B. bronchiseptica on blood agar, purple agar with lactose, MacConkey agar and Smith & Baskerville agar are now included on the bacterial page of B. bronchiseptica as well as Gram staining images.

•  I verktyget Kolhydratkombination 3 för fall 1 var plus (+) och minus (-) omkastade på kontrollrören. Det är rättat nu.
• Om man använde webbläsaren Internet Explorer, så visades inte kontaktformuläret när man ville lämna en kommentar efter ett genomgånget fall. Nu öppnas formuläret i en ny flik i stället för ett pop-up fönster och det verkar fungera.
• När man väljer verktyget Kolhydratkombination 4 [Carb. comb. 4 (Samonella)], kan man se (om man klickar på verktygsnamnet) att detta verktyg omfattar 3 kolhydrater, som också förekommer i de andra kombinationerna, samt ytterligare en kolhydrat, nämligen sorbosfosfat. Observera att sorbosfosfat inte är samma som sorbitol och att information om hur Salmonella spp. fermenterar sorbosfosfat hittar man i en fotnot till kolhydrattabellen på bakteriesidan för S. enterica susp. enterica och inte i själva kolhydrattabellen. Nu är denna information också inskriven i verktygsbeskrivningen i VetBactLab.

Kaggen giving a lecture on VetBact, 25 September 2012.   Photo: Staffan Tamm/VetBact.org

On September 24 the bac­­te­­rio­­logy course for the veterinary students started. We hope that you will find Vet­Bact useful during your studies and we appre­ciate all kinds of feed-back, which will help us to improve VetBact and its three modules: VetBactQuiz, VetBactBlog and VetBactLab.

Feed-back can be given in different ways:

1. By leaving a comment on this post (in English or Swedish) in the VetBactBlog. The comment will be published on the Blog if it is relevant.
2. By using the contact form, which can be reached from most pages of VetBact (particularly useful if you want to comment or ask a question about a certain bacterial species).
3. By leaving a comment on the form, which can be opened when you have finished a case in VetBactLab (particularly useful if you want to comment on the in silico cases).

You may of course also ask questions concerning bacteriology by any of the above ways.

The VetBactRef group

Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica cultivated on bovine blood agar.

Old VetBact images of Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica and Escherichia coli (cultivated on bovine blood agar) have now been replaced with images of improved quality. Images of S. enterica and E. coli  cultivated on purple agar and on special media (BG agar, MSRV agar and XLD agar) have also been added to the bacterial pages. A new gram staining image of S. enterica has also been included in VetBact.

Cultivation of E. coli on BG agar, which is used to differentiate between E. coli and salmonellas.

To avoid getting too many images under the heading “Macromorphology” in VetBact, we have introduced the new heading “Special media” (see e.g. Escherichia coli). Our intention is to use this new heading for images of bacterial colonies cultivated on special media used for isolation and/or identification of the  bacterium in question and not for many other bacteria. Under the heading Macromorphology, we will present pictures of bacterial colonies cultivated on “standard media” (e.g. blood agar, purple agar and FA agar). It will take some time to transfer images to this new heading.