Phenotypic Diversity of Vibrio ichthyoenteri Isolated from the Gastrointestinal Tract of Larval Olive Flounder Paralichthys olivaceus

Vibrio ichthyoenteri is a facultatively anaerobic gram-negative bacterium with straight or slightly curved rod morphology. The bacterium is an etiological agent of bacterial enteritis of Olive flounder Paralichthys olivaceus. Only a handful of studies, using a limited number of isolates, have investigated the phenotypic and genetic characteristics of V. ichthyoenteri. We isolated 40 V. ichthyoenteri strains, identified based on the 16S rRNA gene sequence, from the diseased flounder larvae and investigated the API 20E and ZYM profiles. The isolates exhibited highly divergent phenotypic characteristics regardless of sampling time point and location, and fish age. Essential enzymes produced by V. ichthyoenteri seemed to be alkaline phosphatase, leucine arylamidase, and N-acetyl-${\beta}$-glucosaminidase. This study reveals a much greater enzymatic and biochemical phenotype diversity than has been evident to date. These results suggest that a given population of V. ichthyoenteri could be heterogeneous in terms of its phenotypic characteristics.