Infect Chemother.  2014 Jun;46(2):106-109. 10.3947/ic.2014.46.2.106.

Isolation of Vibrio vulnificus from Seawater and Emerging Vibrio vulnificus Septicemia on Jeju Island

• Lee KH
• Heo ST
• Kim YR
• Pang IC

• KMID: 2284987
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.3947/ic.2014.46.2.106

Abstract

Vibrio vulnificus is an opportunistic human pathogen, transmitted from seawater, raw oyster, and shellfish and responsible for severe septicemia. We studied V. vulnificus from surface seawater around Jeju Island between 2010 and 2011. In 2010, V. vulnificus was isolated and V. vulnificus septicemia was reported. Surface seawater temperature is an important factor for growth of V. vulnificus, and here we showed that high surface seawater temperature may influence growth of V. vulnificus and occurrence of emerging V. vulnificus septicemia on Jeju Island. This is the first report of isolation of V. vulnificus and emerging V. vulnificus septicemia on Jeju Island.

Keyword

Vibrio vulnificus; Sepsis; Seawater; Temperature

MeSH Terms

Humans
Ostreidae
Seawater*
Sepsis*
Shellfish
Vibrio vulnificus*

Figure

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  Figure 1 Characteristic swelling accompanied by ecchymosis and necrotic cutaneous lesions in the left upper arm (A) and left calf area (B).

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  Figure 2 16S rDNA sequences phylogenetic tree. The tree was constructed using the neighbor-joining method in MEGA4 [7]. The bootstrap values presented at the corresponding branches were evaluated from 1,000. The data were displayed according the location where the samples were obtained: SG, V. vulnificus from Seogwipo (southern side); HL, V. vulnificus from Hallim (western side); JJ, V. vulnificus from Jeju (northern side); SS, V. vulnificus from Seongsan (eastern side). 1, inner port; 2, entrance to port; 3, 500 m from entrance to port; 4, 1,000 m from entrance to port. Isolates compared with V. vulnificus 27562 (American Type Culture Collection 27562), X76333 (A, which includes most strains isolated in the Gulf of Mexico, US Atlantic coast, and Asia) and X76334 (B, which included the strains isolated from clinical isolates and in surface seawater Korea) in GenBank.

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