Publications by authors named "Anke J Brouwer-Hanzens"

Worldwide, over 90% of the notified cases of Legionnaires' disease are caused by Legionella pneumophila. However, the standard culture medium for the detection of Legionella in environmental water samples, Buffered Charcoal Yeast Extract (BCYE) agar of pH 6.9 ± 0.

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Unlabelled: Legionella pneumophila proliferates in freshwater environments at temperatures ranging from 25 to 45°C. To investigate the preference of different sequence types (ST) for a specific temperature range, growth of L. pneumophila serogroup 1 (SG1) ST1 (environmental strains), ST47, and ST62 (disease-associated strains) was measured in buffered yeast extract broth (BYEB) and biofilms grown on plasticized polyvinyl chloride in flowing heated drinking water originating from a groundwater supply.

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Article Synopsis
  • To establish protection zones around groundwater wells and safe distances for recharge systems, it's crucial to understand how microorganisms are removed during soil filtration.
  • Column experiments using different soil types showed that the removal rates of various microbial agents were generally efficient but varied based on the soil type, with gravel performing better than fine sandy soil.
  • Factors like soil characteristics and flow rates significantly impact the effectiveness of microbial removal, indicating that simplistic models based on grain and particle sizes can't accurately predict the behavior of microorganisms in subsurface environments.
  • The experiments revealed that common bacteria, such as E. coli, exhibited low removal rates in field conditions, suggesting complexities that challenge the direct application of lab results to real-world scenarios.
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