Genome-wide Identification of Fitness Factors in Seawater for Edwardsiella piscicida.

In conclusion, we defined genes and processes related to metabolism and virulence that operate in E. piscicida to facilitate survival in low- and high-temperature seawater, which may underlie the infection outbreak mechanisms of E. piscicida and facilitate the development of improved vaccines against marine pathogens.IMPORTANCE E. piscicida is one of the most important marine pathogens and causes serious edwardsiellosis in farmed fish during the summer-autumn seasonal changes, resulting in enormous losses to aquaculture industries worldwide. Survival and transmission of the pathogen in seawater are critical steps that increase the risk of outbreaks. To investigate the mechanism of survival in seawater for this marine pathogen, we used transposon insertion sequencing (TIS) analysis to explore the fitness determinants in summer and autumn seawater. Approximately 127 genes linked to metabolism and virulence as well as other processes were revealed in E. piscicida to contribute to better adaptations to the seasonal alternations of seawater environments; these genes provide important insights into the infection outbreak mechanisms of E. piscicida and potential improved treatments or vaccines against marine pathogens.
PMID: 30877123 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

Source: Applied and Environmental Microbiology - March 14, 2019 Category: Microbiology Authors: Wei L, Wu Y, Yang G, Xu R, Liu X, Liu Q, Zhang Y, Ma Y, Wang Q Tags: Appl Environ Microbiol Source Type: research