ANTIGENIC CHARACTERIZATION OF THE ETIOLOGIC AGENT OF THE BROWN RING DISEASE AFFECTING MANILA CLAMS

Vibrio P1 is considered as the causative agent of Brown Ring Disease, an epizootic disease of cultured clams in Europe. Although its pathoge nic implication has been clearly established, its taxonomical inclusio n and virulence mechanisms are not still completely elucidated. In the present work, we have studied the outer membrane protein (OMP) and li popolysaccharide (LPS) patterns and other antigenic characteristics of Vibrio P1 strains, and we have compared to those both reference strai ns of Vibrio and Vibrio strains isolated from diseased clams, by means of SDS-PAGE, immunoblotting, Western blot, slide agglutination and do t-blot techniques. The present results strongly suggest that Vibrio P1 constitutes a homogeneous group on the basis of its antigenic charact eristics. Although this microorganism shares common epitopes with seve ral Vibrio species, antigenic heterogeneity with regard to both LPS-st ructure and OMP-pattern is presented.