Atlantic salmon Salmo salar L. farmed in south-east Tasmania, Australia, are susceptible to infection by the Tasmanian Rickettsia-like organism (TRLO), a Gram-negative bacterium. Here, we report the first isolation of TRLO from south-east Tasmania in pure culture and show that the bacterium is culturable on both specialised enriched agar and in cell culture using the CHSE-214 cell line. In vitro cultured TRLO was used to reproducibly elicit disease in Atlantic salmon parr held in fresh water. In inoculated fish, TRLO was observed intracytoplasmically in peripheral blood leucocytes, suggesting that these cells are responsible for haematogenous dispersal of the bacterium within the host. Fish with experimentally induced disease presented with gross and histopathological changes similar to TRLO-infected fish at commercial marine farms. TRLO was also isolated in culture from farmed Atlantic salmon in the Tamar River and Macquarie Harbour production areas in Tasmania, both of which have no history of TRLO-associated disease. These TRLO isolates appear to be serologically distinct from each other as well as from isolates obtained from south-east Tasmania, linking each serotype to a specific geographical location within Tasmania. Despite the lack of clinical evidence of TRLO-linked disease in fish grown in the Tamar River and Macquarie Harbour, experimental infection trials demonstrably showed the pathogenic potential of these TRLO serovars. Together, these data provide evidence that TRLO is a fastidious, facultative intracellular bacterium and confirm TRLO as a pathogen of Atlantic salmon, causing a disease designated Tasmanian salmonid rickettsiosis.KEY WORDS: Rickettsia-like organism · TRLO · Atlantic salmon · Salmo salar · Culture · Pathogenicity · Tasmania
Resale or republication not permitted without written consent of the publisherDis Aquat Org 122: [85][86][87][88][89][90][91][92][93][94][95][96][97][98][99][100][101][102][103] 2016 RLO (Khoo et al. 1995, Athanassopoulou et al. 2004, Corbeil et al. 2005, Wu et al. 2005 or P. salmonis-like organism (Antonio et al. 2000, Chen et al. 2000a,b, Mauel et al. 2003 until their taxonomic status can be formally resolved. This includes the Tasmanian RLO (TRLO), a bacte rium detected in Atlantic salmon Salmo salar L. farmed on the south-east coast of Tasmania, Austra lia (Corbeil et al. 2005).TRLO is an intracellular, Gram-negative coccoid bacterium that emerged in the summer of 2001 (Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment [DPIPWE] unpublished data). Since then, TRLO has been implicated in minor sporadic outbreaks of disease which have typically coincided with the annual peak in water temperature. The disease is characterised by a high morbidity rate which results in significant production loss through reduced feed intake but relatively low mortality, less than 10% of affected stock. During outbreaks, affected fish are commonly co-infected with the Tasmanian Atlantic salmon reovirus (TSRV; Zainathan et al. 2015), and it is not known wh...