Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Distribution of 13 virulence genes among clinical and environmental Aeromonas spp. in Western Australia

  • Article
  • Published:
European Journal of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

We evaluated the pathogenic potential of 98 clinical and 31 environmental Aeromonas isolates by detecting the presence of 13 virulence genes using a polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based method. The majority (96 %) of the strains contained at least one of the virulence genes. The overall distribution was aerA/haem (77 %), alt (53 %), lafA (51 %), ast (39 %), flaA (32 %), aspA (29 %), vasH (26 %), ascV (16 %) and aexT (13 %). No amplification products were detected for the genes encoding a bundle-forming pilus (BfpA and BfpG) or a Shiga-like toxin (stx-1 and stx-2). Five or more virulence genes were detected in 42 % of environmental and 24 % of clinical isolates. Among the major species, 48 % of A. hydrophila and 42 % of A. dhakensis isolates harboured five or more virulence genes compared with 19 % in A. veronii bv. sobria and none in A. caviae isolates. Our results suggest that, in Western Australia, strains of A. dhakensis and A. hydrophila are potentially more virulent than those of A. veronii bv. sobria and A. caviae, although the pathogenic potential of Aeromonas spp. is probably strain- rather than species-dependent.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Janda JM, Abbott SL (2010) The genus Aeromonas: taxonomy, pathogenicity, and infection. Clin Microbiol Rev 23:35–73

    Article  PubMed  CAS  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  2. Beaz-Hidalgo R, Martínez-Murcia A, Figueras MJ (2013) Reclassification of Aeromonas hydrophila subsp. dhakensis Huys et al. 2002 and Aeromonas aquariorum Martínez-Murcia et al. 2008 as Aeromonas dhakensis sp. nov. comb nov. and emendation of the species Aeromonas hydrophila. Syst Appl Microbiol 36:171–176

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Yu HB, Rao PS, Lee HC, Vilches S, Merino S, Tomas JM, Leung KY (2004) A type III secretion system is required for Aeromonas hydrophila AH-1 pathogenesis. Infect Immun 72:1248–1256

    Article  PubMed  CAS  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  4. Sen K, Lye D (2007) Importance of flagella and enterotoxins for Aeromonas virulence in a mouse model. Can J Microbiol 53:261–269

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Chopra AK, Graf J, Horneman AJ, Johnson JA (2009) Virulence factor–activity relationships (VFAR) with specific emphasis on Aeromonas species (spp.). J Water Health 7(Supp 1):S29–S54

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Sen K, Rodgers M (2004) Distribution of six virulence factors in Aeromonas species isolated from US drinking water utilities: a PCR identification. J Appl Microbiol 97:1077–1086

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Aravena-Román M, Harnett GB, Riley TV, Inglis TJJ, Chang BJ (2011) Aeromonas aquariorum is widely distributed in clinical and environmental specimens and can be misidentified as Aeromonas hydrophila. J Clin Microbiol 49:3006–3008

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  8. Albert MJ, Ansaruzzaman M, Talukder KA, Chopra AK, Kuhn I, Rahman M, Faruque ASG, Sirajul Islam M, Bradley Sack R, Mollby R (2000) Prevalence of enterotoxin genes in Aeromonas spp. isolated from children with diarrhea, healthy controls, and the environment. J Clin Microbiol 38:3785–3790

    PubMed  CAS  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  9. Aguilera-Arreola MG, Hernández-Rodríguez C, Zúñiga G, Figueras MJ, Castro-Escarpulli G (2005) Aeromonas hydrophila clinical and environmental ecotypes as revealed by genetic diversity and virulence genes. FEMS Microbiol Lett 242:231–240

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Aguilera-Arreola MG, Hernández-Rodríguez C, Zúñiga G, Figueras MJ, Garduño RA, Castro-Escarpulli G (2007) Virulence potential and genetic diversity of Aeromonas caviae, Aeromonas veronii, and Aeromonas hydrophila clinical isolates from Mexico and Spain: a comparative study. Can J Microbiol 53:877–887

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Senderovich Y, Ken-Dror S, Vainblat I, Blau D, Izhaki I, Halpern M (2012) A molecular study on the prevalence and virulence potential of Aeromonas spp. recovered from patients suffering from diarrhea in Israel. PLoS One 7:e30070

    Article  PubMed  CAS  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  12. Chacón MR, Figueras MJ, Castro-Escarpulli G, Soler L, Guarro J (2003) Distribution of virulence genes in clinical and environmental isolates of Aeromonas spp. Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek 84:269–278

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  13. Puthucheary SD, Puah SM, Chua KH (2012) Molecular characterization of clinical isolates of Aeromonas species from Malaysia. PLoS One 7(2):e30205

    Article  PubMed  CAS  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  14. Soler L, Figueras MJ, Chacón MR, Vila J, Marco F, Martinez-Murcia AJ, Guarro J (2002) Potential virulence and antimicrobial susceptibility of Aeromonas popoffii recovered from freshwater and seawater. FEMS Immun Med Microbiol 32:243–247

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  15. Braun M, Stuber K, Schlatter Y, Wahli T, Kuhnert P, Frey J (2002) Characterization of an ADP-ribosyltransferase toxin (AexT) from Aeromonas salmonicida subsp. salmonicida. J Bacteriol 184:1851–1858

    Article  PubMed  CAS  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  16. Chacón MR, Soler L, Groisman EA, Guarro J, Figueras MJ (2004) Type III secretion system genes in clinical Aeromonas isolates. J Clin Microbiol 42:1285–1287

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  17. Gavín R, Merino S, Altarriba M, Canals R, Shaw JG, Tomás JM (2003) Lateral flagella are required for increased cell adherence, invasion and biofilm formation by Aeromonas spp. FEMS Microbiol Lett 224:77–83

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  18. Santos PG, Santos PA, Bello AR, Freitas-Almeida AC (2011) Association of Aeromonas caviae polar and lateral flagella with biofilm formation. Lett Appl Microbiol 52:49–55

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  19. Sechi LA, Deriu A, Falchi MP, Fadda G, Zanetti S (2002) Distribution of virulence genes in Aeromonas spp. isolated from Sardinian waters and from patients with diarrhoea. J Appl Microbiol 92:221–227

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  20. Haque QM, Sugiyama A, Iwade Y, Midorikawa Y, Yamauchi T (1996) Diarrheal and environmental isolates of Aeromonas spp. produce a toxin similar to Shiga-like toxin 1. Curr Microbiol 32:239–245

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  21. Alperi A, Figueras MJ (2010) Human isolates of Aeromonas possess Shiga toxin genes (stx1 and stx2) highly similar to the most virulent gene variants of Escherichia coli. Clin Microbiol Infect 16:1563–1567

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  22. Suarez G, Sierra JC, Sha J, Wang S, Erova TE, Fadl AA, Foltz SM, Horneman AJ, Chopra AK (2008) Molecular characterization of a functional type VI secretion system from a clinical isolate of Aeromonas hydrophila. Microb Pathog 44:344–361

    Article  PubMed  CAS  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  23. Mokracka J, Krzymińska S, Szczuka E (2001) Virulence factors of clinical isolates of Aeromonas caviae. Folia Microbiol (Praha) 46:321–326

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  24. Yu HB, Zhang YL, Lau YL, Yao F, Vilches S, Merino S, Tomás JM, Howard SP, Leung KY (2005) Identification and characterization of putative virulence genes and gene clusters in Aeromonas hydrophila PPD134/91. Appl Env Microbiol 71:4469–4477

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  25. Grim CJ, Kozlova EV, Sha J, Fitts EC, van Lier CJ, Kirtley ML, Joseph SJ, Read TD, Burd EM, Tall BD, Joseph SW, Horneman AJ, Chopra AK, Shak JR (2013) Characterization of Aeromonas hydrophila wound pathotypes by comparative genomic and functional analyses of virulence genes. MBio 4(2):e00064–13

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  26. Figueras MJ, Alperi A, Saavedra MJ, Ko WC, Gonzalo N, Navarro M, Martínez-Murcia AJ (2009) Clinical relevance of the recently described species Aeromonas aquariorum. J Clin Microbiol 47:3742–3746

    Article  PubMed  CAS  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  27. Paton AW, Paton JC (1998) Detection and characterization of Shiga toxigenic Escherichia coli by using multiplex PCR assays for stx1, stx2, eaeA, enterohemorrhagic E. Coli hlyA, rfbO111, and rfbO157. J Clin Microbiol 36:598–602

    PubMed  CAS  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

Download references

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA, 6909, Australia

    M. Aravena-Román, T. J. J. Inglis, T. V. Riley & B. J. Chang

  2. Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, PathWest Laboratory Medicine, Nedlands, WA, Australia

    T. J. J. Inglis & T. V. Riley

Authors
  1. M. Aravena-Román
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. T. J. J. Inglis
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. T. V. Riley
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. B. J. Chang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to M. Aravena-Román.

Electronic supplementary material

Below are the links to the electronic supplementary material.

ESM 1

(DOCX 16 kb)

ESM 2

(DOCX 16 kb)

ESM 3

(DOCX 18 kb)

ESM 4

(DOCX 15 kb)

ESM 5

(DOCX 16 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Aravena-Román, M., Inglis, T.J.J., Riley, T.V. et al. Distribution of 13 virulence genes among clinical and environmental Aeromonas spp. in Western Australia. Eur J Clin Microbiol Infect Dis 33, 1889–1895 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10096-014-2157-0

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10096-014-2157-0

Keywords

Search

Navigation