Abstract
Vibrio alginolyticus is the dominant Vibrio species and an opportunistic pathogen for marine animals and human. It has been reported to be an important reservoir for virulence genes in aquatic environment. In this study, a total of 187 isolates of V. alginolyticus from fish ponds or coral reefs in the South China Sea were examined for the presence of two insertion sequences, ISVal-1 and ISVal-2. In addition, the characteristics of the two ISs were described. The results showed that 58.82% of the examined isolates contained ISVal-1 and 23.53% had ISVal-2. For both ISVal-1 and ISVal-2, the detection rate for ISs from the fish ponds was lower than that from the coral reef. Sequence analysis revealed that ISVal-1 had the typical features of the IS5 family which contained 19 bp terminal inverted repeats (IRs) and a large open reading frame containing a conserved DDE motif. ISVal-2 possessed genetic structures identical to the IS3 family which had imperfect IRs and two partially overlapping reading frames, OrfA and orfB. A putative helix-turn-helix (HTH) motif, a presumed leucine zipper (LZ) motif, and a conserved DDE motif were contained in the two Orfs. In addition, the data suggested that ISVal-1 and ISVal-2 in V. alginolyticus may be horizontally transferred from other Vibrio species and play certain roles in the virulence of the pathogen. To our knowledge, this is the first report on ISs in V. alginolyticus.
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