Occurrence of Vibrio parahaemolyticus and Its Specific Phages from Shrimp Ponds in East Coast of India

Abstract

Vibrio parahaemolyticus is a natural microflora of marine and coastal water bodies and associated with mortality of larval shrimp in penaeid shrimp in ponds. Bacteriophages occur virtually in all places where their hosts exist. In this study, total distribution of V. parahaemolyticus and its phages were examined in shrimp ponds, seawater, estuary, animal surface, and tissues. Total vibrio count in sediments of two ponds was found to be 2.6 × 10(3) and 5.6 × 10(3) cfu/g. Incidence of V. parahaemolyticus in the ponds was close, while it was markedly higher in the animal surface and tissue samples. Biochemically identified eight strains of V. parahaemolyticus (V1, V3-V6, V9, V11, and V12) were taken for further infection studies with bacteriophage. Totally five bacteriophages capable of infecting V. parahaemolyticus MTCC-451 strain were isolated from all the samples. One of the isolated bacteriophage Vp1 from estuary was able to lyse all the isolated V. parahaemolyticus strains we used. Therefore, the morphology of Vp1 was estimated in TEM. Vp1 phage head measuring approximately about 50-60 nm diameter with icosahedral outline and a contractile tails of diameter 7 nm and length 100 nm and it was identified as Myoviridae. Therefore, the phages have the potential application in destroying bacterial pathogens.

Isolation and Characterization of the Novel Phages vB_VpS_BA3 and vB_VpS_CA8 for Lysing Vibrio parahaemolyticus

“…Our results suggested that phages can be found in virtually all places where their related hosts exist. Several other investigations reported the presence of Vibrio-specific lytic phages in environmental water (shrimp ponds, aquaculture system, sea water and aquatic product market) from different regions of the world (Alagappan et al, 2010;Luo et al, 2016;Stalin and Srinivasan, 2016;Katharios et al, 2017;Srinivasan and Ramasamy, 2017;Yang M. et al, 2019).…”

Recombinant LysVPMS1 as an endolysin with broad lytic activity against Vibrio parahaemolyticus strains associated to acute hepatopancreatic necrosis disease

“…Bacteriophages are viruses that naturally occur in all places where bacteria are found, they are often isolated from the same culture ponds, are considered environmentally friendly (Alagappan, Deivasigamani, Somasundaram & Kumaran, ), and are generally characterized by their narrow host range allowing no other bacteria be infected (Oliveira, Castilho, Cunha & Pereira, ). However, their high specificity at strain level, rather than at specie level, limits the application against highly diverse bacterial variants, such as VPMS1 phage.…”

Control of AHPND by phages: a promising biotechnological approach

“…Alagappan et al . () isolated eight bacteriophages (V1, V3–V6, V9, V11 and V12) from V. parahaemolyticus strains MTCC‐451, which were associated with healthy shrimp ( P. monodon ) and shrimp culture ponds (water and sediment samples). All phages were able to infect V. parahaemolyticus (strains V1, V3–V6, V9, V11, V12 and MTCC), but only phage Vp1 was able to lyse all the isolated V. parahaemolyticus strains tested.…”