Clonal relationship among the Vibrio parahaemolyticus isolates from coastal water in Saudi Arabia

Vibrio parahaemolyticus is one of the microbiota of aquatic ecosystems. This halophilic bacterium is considered as one of the autochthonous microorganism in aquatic environments. During the last two decades, numerous clinical cases has been reported worldwide due to consumption of contaminated seafood products with V. parahemolyticus. Therefore, the ability to identify the source of a particular clone has important implications in epidemiological and ecological surveys. Only 28 (14%) out of 200 examined seawater samples were positive and yielded 36 isolates of V. parahaemolyticus. ERIC-PCR with two repetitive primers were applied to analyze all the positive isolates for thermolabile hemolysin (tlh) gene for clonal relationship. Both ERIC primers generated polymorphisms in all tested 36 isolates of V. parahaemolyticus and produced polymorphism bands ranging from 250 to 4000 base pairs. The genetic fingerprints patterns comprised by ERIC-PCR have provided evidence for strong genetic relationships within the analyzed isolates of V. parahaemolyticus isolated from this geographical area. Keywords: V. parahaemolyticus, ERIC-PCR, Molecular epidemiology, Seawate