Yersinia ruckeri lipopolysaccharide is necessary and sufficient for eliciting a protective immune response in rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss, Walbaum)

Enteric redmouth disease (ERM), caused by Yersinia ruckeri, has been controlled successfully using immersion-applied bacterin vaccines for several decades. While the host response to vaccination and the mechanism of protection of this vaccine have been elucidated, the bacterial components eliciting protection have remained unclear. Here we show that highly purified serotype O1 Y. ruckeri lipopolysaccharide (LPS) is sufficient to induce a protective response to experimental challenge in rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss). Dose response experiments demonstrated that Y. ruckeri LPS at doses of 1 ng/fish and above resulted in essentially complete protection and doses as low as 0.01 ng/fish (1.38 ng/kg) resulted in significant protection, thus demonstrating the extremely high potency of this immunogen. Analysis of the Y. ruckeri genome identified a cluster of putative O-antigen biosynthetic genes specific to serotype O1 strains. This cluster primarily consisted of genes encoding proteins predicted to function in the biosynthesis of legionamic acid, a nonulosonic acid known to be part of the O-polysaccharide repeat of O1 Y. ruckeri. Mutation of the nab2 gene, a nonulosonic acid biosynthesis gene (nab gene), resulted in production of severely truncated forms of LPS. Vaccination with bacterin vaccines derived from the nab2 mutant and its wild type parent strain demonstrated that LPS is a required component of the whole-cell bacterin vaccine and suggests that LPS is the only cellular component contributing to the protective response elicited by this vaccine. We speculate that the exceptionally high potency of Y. ruckeri LPS accounts for the unusual success of this vaccine when delivered by immersion. •Purified Yersinia ruckeri lipopolysaccharide is sufficient to induce a protective response.•We have identified genes critical for the production of LPS in Y. ruckeri.•LPS is a required component of the Y. ruckeri whole-cell bacterin vaccine.•Bacterin vaccine doses as low as 10 cells/fish confer significant protection.