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Chitin degradation and utilization by virulent Aeromonas hydrophila strain ML10-51K

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Abstract

Virulent Aeromonas hydrophila (vAh) is one of the most important bacterial pathogens that causes persistent outbreaks of motile Aeromonas septicemia in warm-water fishes. The survivability of this pathogen in aquatic environments is of great concern. The aim of this study was to determine the capability of the vAh strain ML10-51K to degrade and utilize chitin. Genome-wide analysis revealed that ML10-51K encodes a suite of proteins for chitin metabolism. Assays in vitro showed that four chitinases, one chitobiase and one chitin-binding protein were secreted extracellularly and participated in chitin degradation. ML10-51K was shown to be able to use not only N-acetylglucosamine and colloidal chitin but also chitin flakes as sole carbon sources for growth. This study indicates that ML10-51K is a highly chitinolytic bacterium and suggests that the capability of effective chitin utilization could enable the bacterium to attain high densities when abundant chitin is available in aquatic niches.

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Acknowledgement

Dr. Junqiang Qiu was a visiting scientist, sponsored by special funds for the Development of Science & Technology of Shanghai Ocean University, to USDA-ARS Aquatic Animal Health Research Unit. This research was supported by USDA-ARS CRIS Project #6010-32000-026-00D. All authors certify that there is no conflict of interest with any financial/research/academic organization.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Aquatic Animal Health Research Unit, USDA-ARS, 990 Wire Road, Auburn, AL, 36832, USA

    Dunhua Zhang, De-Hai Xu & Benjamin H. Beck

  2. College of Fisheries and Life Sciences, Shanghai Ocean University, Pudong New District, Shanghai, 201306, China

    Junqiang Qiu

  3. Department of Biological Sciences, Auburn University, Auburn, AL, USA

    Cody R. Rasmussen-Ivey & Mark R. Liles

Authors
  1. Dunhua Zhang
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  2. De-Hai Xu
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  3. Junqiang Qiu
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  4. Cody R. Rasmussen-Ivey
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  5. Mark R. Liles
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  6. Benjamin H. Beck
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Dunhua Zhang.

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Communicated by Erko Stackebrandt.

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Zhang, D., Xu, DH., Qiu, J. et al. Chitin degradation and utilization by virulent Aeromonas hydrophila strain ML10-51K. Arch Microbiol 199, 573–579 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00203-016-1326-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00203-016-1326-1

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