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Correlation between Detection of a Plasmid and High-Level Virulence of Vibrio nigripulchritudo, a Pathogen of the Shrimp Litopenaeus stylirostris

Yann Reynaud,^1,2 Denis Saulnier,¹ Didier Mazel,³ Cyrille Goarant,^2, and Frédérique Le Roux^1,3*

Laboratoire de Génétique et Pathologie, Ifremer, 17390 La Tremblade, France,¹ Département Aquaculture en Nouvelle-Calédonie, Ifremer, BP 2059, 98846 Nouméa Cedex, Nouvelle-Calédonie,² Unité Plasticité du Génome Bactérien, CNRS URA 2171, Institut Pasteur, 25 Rue du Dr. Roux, 75724, Paris, France³

Received 27 November 2007/ Accepted 2 March 2008

Vibrio nigripulchritudo, the etiological agent of Litopenaeus stylirostris summer syndrome, is responsible for mass mortalities of shrimp in New Caledonia. Epidemiological studies led to the suggestion that this disease is caused by an emergent group of pathogenic strains. Genomic subtractive hybridization was carried out between two isolates exhibiting low and high virulence. Our subtraction library was constituted of 521 specific fragments; 55 of these were detected in all virulent isolates from our collection (n = 32), and 13 were detected only in the isolates demonstrating the highest pathogenicity (n = 19), suggesting that they could be used as genetic markers for high virulence capacity. Interestingly, 10 of these markers are carried by a replicon of 11.2 kbp that contains sequences highly similar to those of a plasmid detected in Vibrio shilonii, a coral pathogen. The detection of this plasmid was correlated with the highest pathogenicity status of the isolates from our collection. The origin and consequence of this plasmid acquisition are discussed.

Published ahead of print on 21 March 2008.

Present address: LRB, Institut Pasteur de Nouvelle Calédonie, BP 61, 98845 Nouméa Cedex, New Caledonia.