Acta Agriculturae Zhejiangensis ›› 2023, Vol. 35 ›› Issue (12): 2844-2853.DOI: 10.3969/j.issn.1004-1524.20221774

• Animal Science • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Isolation, identification and histopathological study on oedema pathogen from cultured leech (Whitmania pigra)

TANG Yi1(), YANG Qinglin1, WANG Wei2, YUAN Yuan2, DING Shihua1, SUN Hanchang3,*(), LYU Hao4   

  1. 1. Key Laboratory of Freshwater Fish Reproduction and Development (Ministry of Education), College of Fisheries, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, China
    2. Chongqing Duoputai Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., Chongqing 400800, China
    3. Technology Innovation Center of Ecological Fishery Industrialization, College of Landscape and Life Science, Chongqing University of Arts and Science, Chongqing 402160, China
    4. Chongqing Hechuan District Aquatic Technology Promotion Station, Chongqing 401520, China
  • Received:2022-12-13 Online:2023-12-25 Published:2023-12-27

Abstract:

To identify the cause of the Whitmania pigra oedema bacteria disease outbreak and to provide new ideas for fishery medicine research, in the present study, the pathogenic bacterial strain (named CQ1808) was isolated from the body cavity fluid of the diseased leeches and bacterial examination, histopathology and antimicrobial drugs test were performed. The results demonstrated that CQ1808 strain was a Gram-negative short bacillus, and was naturally clustered with the 16S rDNA sequence of Citrobacter freundii by the BLAST search. The phylogenetic tree suggested that the strain was Citrobacter freundii. The antidrug profiles of the isolate showed that CQ1808 strain was highly sensitive to 21 antibiotics including aztreonam, ceftriaxone and cefoperazone; intermediately susceptible to 7 antibiotics including ceftazidime, cefazolin and kanamycin; resistant to 9 antibiotics including penicillin, cefuroxime and midecamycin. The symptoms of W. pigra artificially infected with CQ1808 strain were similar to naturally infected leeches. Histopathological analysis showed that the overall organizational structure of the naturally diseased leeches was abnormal and the most distinct pathological changes occurred in the crop. This study indicated that C. freundii was the causative agent of oedema in farmed leeches.

Key words: Whitmania pigra, oedema, Citrobacter freundii, pathogenicity

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