ANTIBIOTIC SUSCEPTIBILITY AND PLASMID PROFILE OF VIBRIO VULNIFICUS ISOLATED FROM COCKLES (ANADARA GRANOSA) INSELANGOR MALAYSIAMOHAMMED KURDI AL-DULAIMI, SAHILAH ABD MUTALIB, MA‘ARUF ABD GHANI NAWAL ABUEL HASSAN, NOURA ALHASHMI , AISA ALKUWARI AND M. S. ALAMAbstract Vibrio vulnificus infections are the worldwide public health problems associated with illnesses resulting from consumption of raw or partially cooked seafood and exposure with the contaminated sea water. The aim of this study is to isolate and identify V. vulnificus from cockles in Malaysia and detect antibiotic susceptibility and plasmid profiles. A total of 78 cockles, 40 from wet and 38 from supermarkets were examined for the presence of V. vulnificus using Thiosulfate-citrate-bile salts-sucrose agar(TCBS) and Chromagar Vibrio(CV). The antibiotic susceptibility tests were performed for 12 antibiotics by the disc diffusion method. For molecular identification of the isolates, the 16S ribosomal RNA gene fragment was amplified by polymerase chain reaction(PCR) and the nucleotide data were subjected to Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST) for analysis. The morphological and biochemical test detected V. vulnificus in 32% of the cockle samples all of which showed resistance to two to eight antibiotics. Plasmids were found in 88% of the isolates with 10 different profiles having two to four plasmids each. Based on 16S rRNA gene sequence homology 15 isolates were identified as V. vulnificus, five as other Vibrios and five as nonvibrios. We have observed a marked difference between morphological methods and molecular methods in identification of V. vulnificus indicating the inadequacy of the morphological technique in discriminating the Vibrio species. The occurrence of V. vulnificus in the cockle samples is quite high so consumption of uncooked and semicooked cockles should be avoided in order to prevent food-borne infection by this pathogenic bacterium.
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