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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, January 1999, p. 346-350, Vol. 65, No. 1
Departamento de Patología Animal I
(Sanidad Animal), Facultad de Veterinaria, Universidad Complutense,
28040 Madrid, Spain
Received 13 July 1998/Accepted 22 October 1998
A PCR-based method was developed for the specific detection of
Yersinia ruckeri in tissues of inoculated trout and
naturally infected trout. No amplification products were obtained with
other yersiniae, bacterial fish pathogens, or phylogenetically related bacteria (n = 34). The sensitivity of PCR detection
was 60 to 65 bacterial cells per PCR tube, which was decreased to 10 to 20 cells by hybridization with a nonradioactive probe. The PCR assay
proved to be as reliable as and faster than the conventional culture
method for the detection of Y. ruckeri in infected trout tissues.
Yersiniosis or enteric redmouth
disease (ERM), caused by Yersinia ruckeri, is a serious
infectious disease in the rainbow trout farming industry that causes
economic problems in this industry worldwide (2). The
disease was first described in the rainbow trout Oncorhynchus
mykiss in 1958 in the United States, and it has become endemic in
North America (6). The first description in Europe occurred
in 1981 in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, but now ERM is
present in most European countries (6). The disease is
characterized by the development of a chronic or acute enterosepticemia
with the presence of congestive or hemorrhagic zones on the skin of the
gills, the mouth, and the intestines, and exophthalmos is also
frequently evident. The disease usually occurs as an acute disease with
high morbidity and mortality rates, which makes it advisable to have
rapid and accurate methods for the specific detection of Y. ruckeri. PCR represents a widely used alternative to traditional
identification methods (21). Although pathogenicity and
virulence genes have been used as target regions, the rRNA molecule is
now accepted as a very useful tool for identification purposes (5,
7, 8, 17). Recent phylogenetic studies of the genus
Yersinia based on 16S rRNA sequencing have shown that this
genus represents a coherent tight cluster within the family
Enterobacteriaceae, with Y. ruckeri forming a
separate subline within the Yersinia five-subline cluster
(10). This fact suggests that by taking advantage of the
differences at the level of 16S rRNA sequences, specific
oligonucleotides that can be used in a PCR assay for diagnostic
purposes can be designed. This approach has been used with different
animal and fish pathogens (1, 4, 11, 15, 19, 20, 22). The
present study reports an alternative PCR assay based on the selective
amplification of a DNA fragment from the Y. ruckeri 16S rRNA gene.
Bacterial strains and preparation of bacterial DNAs.
The
Y. ruckeri isolates, other Yersinia species, and
other bacteria included in the family Enterobacteriaceae, as
well as other phylogenetically related taxa (10) and other
fish pathogenic bacteria used in this study, are listed in Table
1. Strains other than Vibrio
spp. were grown at 22°C on Trypticase soy agar (TSA) (bioMerieux
España s.a., Madrid, Spain). Vibrio strains were grown
at the same temperature on TSA supplemented with 2.5% NaCl.
0099-2240/99/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1999, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Development of a PCR Assay for Detection of
Yersinia ruckeri in Tissues of Inoculated and Naturally
Infected Trout
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ABSTRACT
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TABLE 1.
Bacterial species assayed in the PCR experiments
20°C.
Preparation of artificially contaminated trout tissue
homogenates.
Samples of the spleen, liver, kidney, and feces from
25 fresh commercial rainbow trout were obtained aseptically. The organs were weighed and blended with the appropriate volume of 0.9% saline solution to obtain a 1/10 dilution of each organ. The tissue
homogenates were then filtered with sterile cheesecloth and stored at
20°C until processing. The absence of Y. ruckeri in the
tissue homogenates was determined by plating 100 µl onto TSA and
MacConkey agar plates (bioMerieux), which were incubated at 22°C for
3 days. Samples of 1 ml of tissue homogenate were inoculated with
Y. ruckeri CECT 956 to obtain a final concentration of
106 cells/ml. Then, 0.1 ml of the appropriate 10-fold
dilutions of these homogenates were plated onto MacConkey agar for the
enumeration of Y. ruckeri in the artificially contaminated
tissues. Noninoculated tissue homogenates were used as controls.
Processing of inoculated and naturally infected trout. Twenty-five rainbow trout were maintained in 200-liter-capacity tanks supplied with aerated flowthrough dechlorinated fresh water at an average temperature of 16°C. Each trout was inoculated intraperitoneally with a dose of 105 cells of Y. ruckeri CECT 956. A group of 10 noninoculated fish, maintained under identical conditions, were used as controls. Trout with clinical signs of yersiniosis were killed by an overdose of anesthetic (2-phenoxyethanol). The spleen, kidney, and liver of each trout were removed aseptically, and each organ was diluted and filtered as described above. Tissue homogenates of noninoculated trout were used as controls. Enumeration of Y. ruckeri in each organ from the inoculated trout and the absence of yersiniae in noninoculated trout were assayed as described above.
Naturally infected trout were obtained from two farms in Spain that were experiencing cases of yersiniosis. Fish were sacrificed, and tissues were removed and processed as described above. Isolation of Y. ruckeri from each organ was done by streaking a loop on TSA and MacConkey agar plates after 3 days of incubation at 22°C. Colonies suspected to be Y. ruckeri were subcultured on TSA and biochemically identified by using API 20E strips (bioMerieux España s.a.). Homogenates of liver, kidney, and feces from two naturally infected trout that were positive by PCR but bacteriologically negative were analyzed for the presence of Y. ruckeri. Tissue homogenates (1 ml) were added to 9 ml of enrichment broth. The enrichment broth was prepared by allowing the agar of the yersinia-selective agar base (Oxoid) to sediment, and the supernatant was recovered. The recommended selective supplement, SR109, was not added to the broth. After 48 h of incubation at 30°C, 100 µl of the enrichment broth was streaked onto TSA agar. Plates were incubated and Y. ruckeri colonies were identified as described above.DNA extraction from tissues. One hundred to 300 µl of tissue homogenates, previously filtered, were diluted to 500 µl with TES buffer and further processed by the method of Lawson et al. (12), described above. The total extracted DNA was dissolved in 20 µl of sterile distilled water and used for PCR experiments.
Primers design and PCR amplification. Two forward primers, YER8 (5'-GCGAGGAGGAAGGGTTAAGTG-3') and YER11 (5'-CACTTAACCCTTCCTCCTCGC-3'), and two reverse primers, YER10 (5'-GAAGGCACCAAGGCATCTCTG-3') and YER12 (5'-AGTAATGTCTGGGGATCTGCC-3'), were designed from unconserved regions of the Y. ruckeri 16S rRNA gene sequence (accession no. X75275). The apparent specificity of each primer was determined by matching it to the Ribosomal Database Project microbial ribosomal small-subunit data set, using the Check-Probe function (14). Primers were tested for PCR amplification at two different annealing temperatures (57 and 60°C), with DNA from selected strains of Y. ruckeri, other Yersinia species, and other taxa included in Table 1.
The PCR amplification was conducted in a total volume reaction of 100 µl containing 50 to 70 ng of genomic bacterial DNA or 20 µl of DNA extracted from fish tissue, 1 mM each primer, 2 mM each deoxynucleotide triphosphate, 10 µl of Taq polymerase buffer (BioTools), and 1 U of Taq polymerase (BioTools). The amplification reaction was performed in a PT-100 thermal cycler (MJ Research, Inc.) by using 25 cycles of denaturation for 1 min at 92°C, annealing at the selected temperature for 1 min, and extension for 1 min at 72°C, followed by a final extension step of 72°C for 5 min. Negative (no template DNA) and positive (50 ng of purified DNA from Y. ruckeri CECT 956) controls were included in each batch of PCR mixtures. PCR-generated products were detected by using 1% agarose gels, with 10 µl of each amplification mixture subjected to electrophoresis. To determine the detection limit of the PCR, a suspension of Y. ruckeri CECT 956 containing 104 CFU/ml was serially diluted twofold to 10 CFU/ml. Twenty microliters of each dilution was boiled for 10 min and added directly to the PCR mixture. The bacterial concentration was verified by plating 20 µl of each dilution onto TSA. The specificity of the PCR assay was evaluated by using the purified DNA extracted from all Y. ruckeri strains and other bacteria listed in Table 1 as a template.Slot blot hybridization. Bacterial suspensions of 101 to 105 cells were transferred to a nylon membrane, which was positively charged (Boehringer Mannheim) by a slot blot procedure using a Bio-Dot microfiltration apparatus (Bio-Rad). Bacterial DNA was extracted by alkaline lysis and fixed to the membrane by the hybridization colony method described by Sambrook et al. (18). The blot was assayed against the 575-bp 5'-end biotin product obtained from strain CECT 956 by PCR amplification with biotin YER8 and YER10 primers, labeled at the 5' end. Prehybridization and hybridization were performed at 60°C for 3 h in 5× SSC-0.1% SDS (1× SSC is 0.15 M NaCl plus 0.015 M sodium citrate). The labeled probe concentration used was 30 ng/ml. Washes were performed at 65°C for high-stringency conditions (0.5× SSC-0.1% SDS). Hybridized DNA was detected with the CDP-Star procedure (Boehringer Mannheim), using a 1:5,000 dilution of streptavidin-peroxidase conjugate.
Development of the PCR assay. The primer combination YER10-YER11 gave an amplification product of 322 bp at both annealing temperatures, but amplification products were also observed with Yersinia enterocolitica and Aeromonas salmonicida (data not shown). The primer set YER8-YER10 gave a unique and specific amplification band with a 575-bp length at an annealing temperature of 60°C with Y. ruckeri strains only. However, at an annealing temperature of 57°C, nonspecific amplification products were observed with Y. enterocolitica. Identical amplification products were obtained when PCR was performed with whole bacterial cells boiled for 10 min instead of purified extracted DNA. On the basis of these results, the primer combination YER8-YER10 at an annealing temperature of 60°C was further used for all PCR assays. All Y. ruckeri strains showed a 575-bp amplification product, while no amplification products were found with any of the other Yersinia species, bacterial fish pathogens, or phylogenetically related bacteria listed in Table 1, at this annealing temperature (Fig. 1). These results indicated that the primer combination YER8-YER10, as well as the PCR procedure, were adequate for specific detection of Y. ruckeri. The PCR assay had a detection limit of 60 to 65 cells per PCR mixture (Fig. 2A), assuming that the lysate procedure was completed, since no viable cells were detected after the boiling treatment. This level equals 6.5 × 102 cells/ml. When the PCR amplification product was used as a nonradioactive probe in blotting hybridization experiments, we were able to detect at least to 10 to 20 bacterial cells (Fig. 2B).
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Application of PCR for the detection of Y. ruckeri in contaminated tissue homogenates and experimentally inoculated and naturally infected trout tissues. PCR amplification results were obtained for all feces and tissue homogenates used at a dilution rate of 1:4 in TES buffer (100 µl of tissue homogenate and 400 µl of TES buffer), and no differences were observed in the PCR amplification results regardless of the type of tissue homogenate. The detection limit in tissues was 2 × 104 CFU/g. When the amount of filtered homogenate was increased to over 100 µl (dilution rates of 2:3 or 3:2), an inhibitory effect on the PCR amplification was observed (data not shown); this could be explained by the presence of inhibitory substances in the tissue extracts, which have been reported to inhibit or reduce the sensitivity of the PCR (4, 16, 19). Although inhibition of the PCR has been reported when high concentrations of DNA or large populations of target cells are used (13), no differences were found in the PCR amplification results within a range of 104 to 109 Y. ruckeri cells.
PCR consistently resulted in the amplification of target DNA in all tissues examined from experimentally inoculated trout (Fig. 3). Enumeration of Y. ruckeri in these inoculated trout ranged from 2 × 106 to 5 × 109 CFU/g. Noninoculated trout tissues were always PCR negative. In naturally infected trout, all tissue homogenates positive for Y. ruckeri by conventional culture method (streak of a loop onto TSA or MacConkey agar) were also positive by the PCR assay. Enumeration of Y. ruckeri in naturally infected trout ranged from 3 × 105 to 2 × 106 CFU/g. Samples from naturally infected trout that were negative by the culture method were also PCR negative, except for feces, kidney, and liver homogenates from two trout. The recovery of Y. ruckeri from these samples after selective enrichment suggests that the PCR assay could also be useful for the detection of asymptomatic infected fish, which are difficult to identify by using traditional bacteriological approaches (3, 9). The detection of these asymptomatic carriers is very important in order to prevent the transmission and diffusion of ERM (3).
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
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The research described in this paper has been financially supported by Dibaq-Diproteg S. A.
We thank F. Uruburu (Director of the Spanish Type Culture Collection) for providing the collection strains and J. L. Larsen for providing the Danish Y. ruckeri clinical isolates.
A. Gibello and M. M. Blanco contributed equally to this work.
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FOOTNOTES |
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* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Departamento de Patología Animal I (Sanidad Animal), Facultad de Veterinaria, Universidad Complutense, 28040 Madrid, Spain. Phone: 34 91 3943716. Fax: 34 91 3943908. E-mail: garayzab{at}eucmax.sim.ucm.es.
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