Background and Aim: Despite the importance of the global emergence of Vibrio parahaemolyticus infections worldwide, there has been scanty information on its occurrence in Malaysian seawaters and fish. This study aimed to determine the occurrence of V. parahaemolyticus isolates using polymerase chain reaction targeted at toxin operon gene, thermostable direct hemolysin (tdh), and tdh-related hemolysin genes and to determine antibiotic resistance pattern, genes, and plasmid profile of V. parahaemolyticus from Malaysian seawaters and fish. Materials and Methods: Samples were collected from four recreational beaches in Malaysia (Port Klang; Bachok; Port Dickson; and Mersing). Thiosulfate-citrate-bile salts-sucrose (TCBS) agar and chromogenic Vibrio agar were used for isolation and identification. Colonies with yellow color on TCBS and green color on chromogenic vibrio (CV) agar were considered to be V. parahaemolyticus and they were subjected to biochemical tests. All V. parahaemolyticus isolates were further subjected to identification using seven specific gene markers. Results: Seventy-three Vibrio isolates were recovered. Only one gene tdh> from seawater isolates of Vibrio has high virulence gene percentage (95.23%). Two genes alkaline serine protease (asp) and (tdh) had high percentage of virulence (83.87% and 80.64%, respectively) from fish. Comparatively, fish isolates have a higher virulence percentage compared to seawater isolates. Only gene streptomycin resistance B (strB) from seawater had 100% of the resistance genes. All isolates were multi-antibiotic resistant. Seventeen antibiotic resistance patterns were observed. The isolates had plasmids of varying sizes ranging from 2.7 kb to 42.4 kb. Dendrogram based on antibiotic resistance patterns of V. parahaemolyticus isolates discriminated the isolates into three clusters. Conclusion: This study demonstrated the occurrence of pathogenic, multi-antibiotic-resistant V. parahaemolyticus strains in Malaysian coastal waters and fish, and this could constitute potential public health risks.

The present study was aimed to detect the presence of multiple antibiotic resistance, antibiotic resistance genes and plasmid profile of Vibrio alginolyticus isolated from seawater and sediment of different beaches in Malaysia. Forty five isolates, including 24 seawater and 21 sediment isolates of V. alginolyticus were tested against 14 antibiotics for the antibiogram profile and the presence of the plasmids. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was conducted to elucidate the presence of 7 antibiotic resistance genes including Streptomycin resistance (strB), β-lactamase resistance (blaP1), Chloramphenicol Resistance (floR), Tetracycline Resistance (tetA), Erythromycin resistance (ermB), Quinolone resistance protein (qnrA) and Aminoglycosides resistance (aac(3)-IIa). Antibiotic resistance studies revealed that in seawater isolates, the highest percentage of antibiotic resistant was obtained against erythromycin E and penicillin P (100%), whereas the lowest antibiotic resistant percentage was obtained from both chloramphenicol C and nalidixic acid NA (16.66 %). The sediment isolates of V. alginolyticus showed 100% resistance against both penicillin P and ampicillin AM and the lowest percentage was of gentamycin CN (0 %). There were 17 different antibiotic patterns were observed from the V. alginolyticus in this study. The plasmid size was ranged from 2.3 Kb to 21.6 Kb, while there was no detection of plasmid in19 isolates. The highest resistance gene percentage of seawater isolates was found to be ermB (91.66%) which was followed by blapl with 70.83% of resistance gene. The lowest percentage of resistance gene was floR with 16.66% of resistance gene. The highest percentage of resistance gene in seawater isolates was found to be tetA with 61.9% of resistance gene and the lowest percentage was obtained from floR which had 14.28% resistance gene. The finding of this study was showen high percentage of resistance genes in seawater than sediment isolates. These results suggest that the V. alginolyticus isolated from seawater and sediments observed in this study were pathogenic, and involved a source of antibiotic resistance genes that could be transmitted to other population of bacteria through mobile genetic elements.

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