Molecular Detection of White Spot Syndrome Virus from Farmed Shrimps in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Shrimp industry is one of the important sectors in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and it has shown steep production and economic values. WSSV is a major pathogen which causing 100% mortality and economic losses in world wide. In KSA two most important species such as Litopenaeus vannamei and Fenneropenaeus indicus were cultured widely. Due to the sheer expansion of shrimp culture industry, WSSV occurrences was found in F. indicus and followed by WSSV outbreak, SPF L. vannamei was imported and cultured in KSA with stringent biosecurity measures implied by ministry of water, environment and agriculture. The present study was aims to identify the presence of WSSV in L. vannamei in selected area of KSA applying molecular method. Samples were collected from Jazan region it was fixed in 95% ethanol and stored in -80°C for the analysis. The collected samples were subjected to nucleic acid (DNA) extraction, followed by conventional and real time PCR. The obtained positive PCR products were purified, and it was sequenced. The sequences analyzed to see the similarities in NCBI blast. The present study found that the collected samples were shown a clear positive in F. indicus and L. vannamei in conventional and real time PCR analysis. The obtained sequences were shown 97% similarities with other WSSV isolates in Gen Bank. The obtained data from this study was found to be the presence of WSSV in KSA. PCR followed by sequencing was useful to identify the presence of WSSV in a shrimp project area. Furthermore, we suggest more molecular studies for prevalence of WSSV.