RESUMO
Vagococcus salmoninarum was identified as the causative agent of a chronic epizootic in broodstock "coaster" brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) at the Iron River National Fish Hatchery. The epizootic spanned more than a year, was unresponsive to multiple florfenicol treatments, and resulted in >50% mortality of the affected fish. The decision was made to cull the remaining fish during spawning, which presented an opportunity to more thoroughly examine V. salmoninarum sampling methods, organ tropism and vertical transmission. A newly developed qPCR targeting the pheS gene was used in concert with bacterial culture to show that V. salmoninarum indeed disproportionately affects females and has a tropism for female reproductive tissues. The study demonstrates that some female reproductive tissues (e.g. ovarian fluid, unfertilized eggs) are also an effective option for non-lethal detection. Despite the widespread presence of V. salmoninarum in ovarian fluid and on egg surfaces, we found no evidence of intra-ova transmission.
Assuntos
Enterococcaceae/isolamento & purificação , Doenças dos Peixes/epidemiologia , Infecções por Bactérias Gram-Positivas/veterinária , Reação em Cadeia da Polimerase/veterinária , Truta , Animais , Aquicultura , Feminino , Doenças dos Peixes/microbiologia , Doenças dos Peixes/transmissão , Infecções por Bactérias Gram-Positivas/epidemiologia , Infecções por Bactérias Gram-Positivas/microbiologia , Infecções por Bactérias Gram-Positivas/transmissão , Masculino , Óvulo/microbiologia , Reação em Cadeia da Polimerase/métodos , Prevalência , Tropismo Viral , Wisconsin/epidemiologiaRESUMO
In 2018, Vagococcus salmoninarum was isolated from two lots of broodstock "coaster" brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) containing ~1,500 fish at the Iron River National Fish Hatchery, at which time it was identified as the causative agent of a chronic coldwater streptococcosis epizootic. Clinical signs included exophthalmia, lethargy, erratic swimming and loss of equilibrium. Female fish experienced disproportionately higher morbidity and mortality than male co-inhabitants, and routinely retained eggs following spawning. The most consistent gross clinical sign was heart pallor and turbid pericardial effusion. An attempted treatment using florfenicol was ineffective at halting the epizootic, which spanned more than a year and resulted in >50% mortality before remaining fish were culled. As there is no previous documentation of V. salmoninarum at this hatchery or in this species, it is still unclear what circumstances led to this epizootic. The inability to treat this chronic disease led to the loss of valuable broodstock, hampering ongoing fishery conservation efforts in the Great Lakes Basin.