Molecular and Genomic Characterization of Vibrio mimicus Isolated from a Frozen Shrimp Processing Facility in Mexico

Abstract

Vibrio mimicus is a gram-negative bacterium responsible for diseases in humans. Three strains of V. mimicus identified as V. mimicus 87, V. mimicus 92 and V. mimicus 93 were isolated from a shrimp processing facility in Guaymas, Sonora, Mexico. The strains were analyzed using several molecular techniques and according to the cluster analysis they were different, their similarities ranged between 51.3% and 71.6%. ERIC-PCR and RAPD (vmh390R) were the most discriminatory molecular techniques for the differentiation of these strains. The complete genomes of two strains (V. mimicus 87, renamed as CAIM 1882, and V. mimicus 92, renamed as CAIM 1883) were sequenced. The sizes of the genomes were 3.9 Mb in both strains, with 2.8 Mb in ChI and 1.1 Mb in ChII. A 12.7% difference was found in the proteome content (BLAST matrix). Several virulence genes were detected (e.g. capsular polysaccharide, an accessory colonization factor and genes involved in quorum-sensing) which were classified in 16 categories. Variations in the gene content between these genomes were observed, mainly in proteins and virulence genes (e.g., hemagglutinin, mobile elements and membrane proteins). According to these results, both strains were different, even when they came from the same source, giving an insight of the diversity of V. mimicus. The identification of various virulence genes, including a not previously reported V. mimicus gene (acfD) in ChI in all sequenced strains, supports the pathogenic potential of this species. Further analysis will help to fully understand their potential virulence, environmental impact and evolution.

Virulence‐associated factors in Vibrio cholerae non‐O1/non‐O139 and V. mimicus strains isolated in ornamental fish species

“…It can be isolated from a large number of environmental sources such as fresh, brackish and sea water (Campos et al., ; Guardiola‐Avila et al., ). V. mimicus has been linked to foodborne illnesses in recent years causing sporadic cases of diarrhoea with cholera‐like signs (Guardiola‐Avila et al., ). Phenotypically, most features of V. mimicus are identical to those found in V. cholerae , but it differs in its negative reactions to sucrose, Voges‐Proskauer, corn oil and Jordan tartrate (Boyd et al., ).…”

Core and Accessory Genome Analysis of Vibrio mimicus

“…Nine genomes of V. mimicus were analyzed in this study. The genomes of V. mimicus CAIM-602 T (Vm602, PRJNA179483) [ 7 ], V. mimicus CAIM-1882 (Vm1882, PRJNA219179), V. mimicus CAIM-1883 (Vm1883, PRJNA219181) [ 20 ], and V. mimicus ATCC-33654 (Vm 33654, PRJNA231624) were sequenced by our research group, as previously reported [ 7 , 20 ]. The remaining five genomes sequences were obtained from the database of the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI): V. mimicus MB451 (Vm451, PRJNA40509), V. mimicus VM223 (Vm223, PRJNA40483), V. mimicus VM603 (Vm603, PRJNA40241), V. mimicus VM573 (Vm573, PRJNA40243), and V. mimicus SX-4 (Vm SX4, PRJNA47421) [ 6 , 10 , 14 ].…”

“…The contigs were assembled with Geneious R6 ver. 6.0.3 (Biomatters Ltd. Auckland, New Zealand) to obtain the two chromosomes (ChI and ChII) of all V. mimicus strains [ 20 ]. The nine assembled sequences of each chromosome of V. mimicus strains and their corresponding counterparts of V. cholerae strains were aligned using progressiveMAUVE ver.…”

“…Several virulence genes typical of pathogenic Vibrio species have been found in the genome of V. mimicus strains. Nevertheless, no differences in the virulence potential have been found between environmental and clinical strains of V. mimicus [ 6 , 20 , 21 ]. It has been reported that these virulence genes could have an important role in V. mimicus adaptation to their natural environment [ 6 ], where pathogenic strains could emerge.…”

Characterization of Potential Virulence Factors of Vibrio mimicus Isolated from Fishery Products and Water

“…The infective dose is unknown, but it is believed to be the same as that of V. cholerae , ranging from 10 4 to 10 6 cells [ 3 ]. This bacterium has been isolated from water and a variety of fishery products, such as oysters, sea turtle eggs, shrimp, crab, and fish [ 4 ].…”