Identification and isolation of a spiroplasma pathogen from diseased oriental river prawn, Macrobrachium nipponense, in China: A new freshwater crustacean host

Spiroplasmas are small, wall-less, helical, and motile bacteria classified within the class Mollicutes. Spiroplasma has been identified as a lethal pathogen of four freshwater crustaceans in previous studies. Here, the fifth crustacean host of spiroplasma was found. A novel disease of oriental river...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Aquaculture 2015-02, Vol.437, p.270-274
Main Authors: Xiu, Yunji, Wu, Ting, Meng, Xinhe, Meng, Qingguo, Wang, Wen
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aquaculture
Bacteria
Challenge experiment
Crustaceans
Macrobrachium nipponense
Mollicutes
Pathogen isolation
Pathogenic bacteria
Phylogenetics
Ribonucleic acid
RNA
Spiroplasma
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Spiroplasmas are small, wall-less, helical, and motile bacteria classified within the class Mollicutes. Spiroplasma has been identified as a lethal pathogen of four freshwater crustaceans in previous studies. Here, the fifth crustacean host of spiroplasma was found. A novel disease of oriental river prawn Macrobrachium nipponense appeared in the summer of 2012 in Jiangsu province of China. Morphological observation, molecular biological methods and infection experiments identified the pathogen as a spiroplasma. The agent isolated from diseased prawns was able to pass through membrane filters with pores 220nm in diameter and cultivated by R2 medium. A 16S rRNA complete sequence was cloned from the isolation and alignment results revealed that the spiroplasmas from freshwater crustaceans were highly related. Phylogenetic analysis of these sequences showed that the five freshwater crustacean spiroplasma strains had a close relationship with Spiroplasma mirum. The pathogenicity of the agent, evaluated by the mortalities, was determined to be 65% through a challenge experiment. The above results indicated that M. nipponense is another new spiroplasma host in aquatic crustaceans, thus further indicating that more attention should be paid to this pathogen. •A novel disease of oriental river prawn M. nipponense appeared in Jiangsu province of China.•The pathogen was isolated from diseased prawns and cultured in R2 medium.•Morphological observation, 16S rRNA cloning, and infection experiments were conducted.•The pathogen was identified as a spiroplasma.
ISSN:0044-8486
1873-5622
DOI:10.1016/j.aquaculture.2014.12.010