Challenges in Vibrio Parahaemolyticus Infections Caused by the Pandemic Clone

Abstract

Vibrio Parahaemolyticus infections caused by the pandemic clone have become a global public health issue. The pandemic clone includes over ten sequence types and 49 serotypes. Several markers such as toxRS/new, orf8 and genomic islands were considered specific for pandemic strains, but subsequent studies later confirmed a lack of specificity. Thus, identifying stable indicators for the pandemic clone is still an open question. In recent years, several environmental pandemic strains are growing, constituting a new threat to seafood safety and human health. Traditional methods show limited discrimination in studying the microevolution of pandemic strains. For example, multilocus sequence typing divides many pandemic strains into ST3 type, making it difficult to further distinguish the variability within ST3 strains from different contexts. When using a whole genome sequencing-based technique, strains including those with the same sequence type, could be well separated. Whole genome sequencing-based technology also played important roles in dissecting the evolution process and revealing the mechanism underlying rapid serotype conversion within pandemic strains. In addition, the emergence of multiple-antibiotic resistant pandemic strains needs attention. Altogether, we are facing many challenges posed by pandemic V. parahaemolyticus strains, which need to be resolved in future studies.

Continuous Genomic Surveillance Monitored the In Vivo Evolutionary Trajectories of Vibrio parahaemolyticus and Identified a New Virulent Genotype

“…Recently, V. parahaemolyticus has become the leading cause of seafood-borne gastroenteritis (14). A recent phylogenetic analysis of pandemic V. parahaemolyticus isolates (emerged in 1996), and prepandemic isolates (isolated in the 1980s) suggested that the prepandemic strains initially acquired a genomic island containing thermostable direct hemolysin gene (tdh) and a toxRS new region (15); subsequent genomic analysis revealed that acquisition of seven novel genomic islands converted them into pandemic O3:K6 isolates within a decade (16).…”

De Novo Sequencing Provides Insights Into the Pathogenicity of Foodborne Vibrio parahaemolyticus

“…Due to the increasing global incidence of foodborne gastroenteritis caused by V. parahaemolyticus (Rezny and Evans, 2020), it is imperative to reevaluate the pathogenicity of this bacteria using modern tools. WGS has played an important role in analyzing the evolution of V. parahaemolyticus and revealing the mechanism of their rapid serotype conversion (Han et al, 2019). However, the uncertainty of pathogenic difference on V. parahaemolyticus remains the difficulty providing complication to its virulence and pathogenic prediction, which reflects in the different isolating sources, geographic positions and infecting concentration correlation.…”

A Novel Molecular Method for Simultaneous Identification of Vibrio parahaemolyticus 57 K-Serogroups Using Probe Melting Curve Analysis

“…V. parahaemolyticus is the leading causal agent of human acute gastroenteritis and has become a global public health issue (Letchumanan et al, 2014;Han et al, 2019). V. parahaemolyticus serotyping is considered to be the initial step for timely detection and source tracking of vibriosis outbreaks and can provide historical and comparable data for the surveillance of V. parahaemolyticus infections on a global scale (Han et al, 2016;Baker-Austin et al, 2018).…”

“…Therefore, V. parahaemolyticus is recognized as the leading cause of foodborne disease in China (Liu et al, 2018). Recent studies have found that pandemic V. parahaemolyticus strains are responsible for approximately 50%-80% of all V. parahaemolyticus cases in many countries, including India, Peru, Mexico and Chile (Han et al, 2019). In addition, a newly emerging shrimp disease, acute hepatopancreatic necrosis disease (AHPND), is known to be caused by strains of V. parahaemolyticus that contain a unique virulence plasmid.…”