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About the Authors:
Jeffrey W. Turner
* E-mail: [email protected]
Affiliations Northwest Fisheries Science Center, National Marine Fisheries Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Seattle, Washington, United States of America, Center for Environmental Genomics, School of Oceanography, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States of America
Rohinee N. Paranjpye
Affiliation: Northwest Fisheries Science Center, National Marine Fisheries Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Seattle, Washington, United States of America
Eric D. Landis
Affiliation: Center for Veterinary Medicine, Food and Drug Administration, Rockville, Maryland, United States of America
Stanley V. Biryukov
Affiliation: Northwest Fisheries Science Center, National Marine Fisheries Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Seattle, Washington, United States of America
Narjol González-Escalona
Affiliation: Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, Food and Drug Administration, College Park, Maryland, United States of America
William B. Nilsson
Affiliation: Northwest Fisheries Science Center, National Marine Fisheries Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Seattle, Washington, United States of America
Mark S. Strom
Affiliation: Northwest Fisheries Science Center, National Marine Fisheries Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Seattle, Washington, United States of America
Introduction
Vibrio parahaemolyticus is a Gram stain-negative bacterium autochthonous to marine and estuarine environments worldwide [1]–[3]. While the majority of environmental strains are innocuous members of the marine microbiota, small subpopulations are opportunistic pathogens of humans [4]. Potentially virulent strains are commonly differentiated from likely avirulent strains by the presence of the thermostable direct (tdh) and tdh-related (trh) hemolysin genes [5], [6]. Acute gastroenteritis is the most common manifestation of illness and often associated with the consumption of raw or undercooked oysters, which can bioaccumulate the bacterium through filter-feeding [7]–[9].
V. parahaemolyticus is a genetically and serotypically diverse species. Outbreaks prior to 1996 were geographically isolated and associated with a diversity of serotypes [10], [11]. Beginning in southeast Asia in 1996, a variant of an existing V. parahaemolyticus serotype (O3:K6) was implicated as the cause of larger and less localized outbreaks [12], [13]. Since 1996, numerous outbreak investigations have detailed the emergence, clonal expansion and global dissemination of this O3:K6 serotype [14]–[20]. The O3:K6 serotype and its related serovariants, now recognized as a pandemic clonal complex, have since been associated with a dramatic increase in V. parahaemolyticus infections worldwide [9].
In the United States (US), the pandemic serotype (O3:K6)...