Characterization of Pseudomonas aeruginosa associated with diseased postlarval abalone in Shenzhen, China

Abstract

Outbreaks of mass mortality of postlarval abalone, Haliotis diversicolor supertexta, have occurred in south China since 2002 and have forced many abalone farms to close. About 30 representative bacterial strains were isolated from a sample of five diseased postlarval abalone, taken 25 days post-fertilization during an outbreak of postlarval disease in Shenzhen, China, in October 2006. Bacterial challenge tests showed that the predominant strain, designated as strain 22, was highly virulent to postlarvae with an LD50 value of 7.8 × 104 colony forming units (CFU) ml−1, while four of the other isolates were weakly virulent with LD50 values ranging from 1 × 106 to 1 × 107 CFU ml−1, and the remaining 25 isolates were classified as avirulent with LD50 values greater than 1 × 108 CFU ml−1. By means of API 20NE and 16S rDNA and ITS sequencing analyses, strain 22 was identified as Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Antibiotic susceptibility tests showed that strain 22 exhibited around 75% of susceptibility to 16 various antibiotics tested. The results of this study show P. aeruginosa as one of the bacteria involved in the mortality of abalone postlarvae in Shenzhen, China.