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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Microbiol.

Sec. Food Microbiology

Prevalence, bacterial load, and genomic characterization of Vibrio parahaemolyticus in freshwater-farmed Litopenaeus vannamei from China

Provisionally accepted
Feifei ShanFeifei Shan1Weiwei LiWeiwei Li2Zunhua ChuZunhua Chu3Peibin HouPeibin Hou3Na SunNa Sun3Ronghua LiRonghua Li4Xuejie LiuXuejie Liu5Weiwei ChenWeiwei Chen5Ling ZhongLing Zhong6Shaofei YanShaofei Yan2*Shenghui CuiShenghui Cui7*Yunchang GuoYunchang Guo2*
  • 1Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing, China
  • 2China National Center for Food Safety Risk Assessment, Beijing, China
  • 3Shandong Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Jinan, China
  • 4Jining Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Jining, China
  • 5Fujian Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Fuzhou, China
  • 6Zhangzhou center for disease control and prevention, Zhangzhou, China
  • 7National Institutes for Food and Drug Control, Beijing, China

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This study aimed to investigate and evaluate the contamination of Vibrio parahaemolyticus in freshwater-farmed marine shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei) in China. The prevalence and bacterial load of V. parahaemolyticus in freshwater shrimp aquaculture were assessed and isolates were obtained for WGS. The prevalence of V. parahaemolyticus in shrimp samples was 39.1% and the bacteria load ranged from 3.6 MPN/g to 24,000 MPN/g. Analysis on isolates demonstrated that 75.8% (94/124) were assigned to 28 sequence types (STs), whereas 24.2% STs were unknown. In total, seven antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) were found, of which tet(34), tet(35), and blaCARB were harbored in all isolates. There was a significant correlation between blaCARB types and STs was found, with isolates sharing identical STs carried the same blaCARB variant. The trh+ isolates (9.7%, 12/124) was simultaneously coexisted with hlyB and hlyC. All four ST79 strains harbored trh/hlyB/hlyC and blaCARB_46. Our findings elucidated the contamination of V. parahaemolyticus in freshwater-farmed L. vannamei, with heavy bacteria load in Fujian province. Although the number of This is a provisional file, not the final typeset article ARGs and virulence genes was few in V. parahaemolyticus isolates in the present study, the emergence of specific ST co-harboring critical virulence genes and ARGs indicating the necessity for targeted surveillance and specified control in aquaculture systems.

Keywords: Vibrio parahaemolyticus, Litopenaeus vannamei, Prevalence, Bacterial Load, Genomic Analysis

Received: 25 Sep 2025; Accepted: 07 Nov 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Shan, Li, Chu, Hou, Sun, Li, Liu, Chen, Zhong, Yan, Cui and Guo. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence:
Shaofei Yan, yanshaofei@cfsa.net.cn
Shenghui Cui, cuishenghui@aliyun.com
Yunchang Guo, gych@cfsa.net.cn

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Supplementary Material