IMMUNOCHEMICAL ANALYSES OF VIBRIO-ANGUILLARUM STRAINS ISOLATED FROM COD, GADUS-MORHUA L, SUFFERING FROM VIBRIOSIS

Vibrio anguillarum isolates were sampled from cod fry showing clinical signs of vibriosis at different cod farms along the western coast of Norway. Except for one isolate, all were shown to cause mortality in l aboratory challenge experiments. Using biochemical analysis and specif ic rabbit antisera (O1-O5), all the pathogenic isolates were classifie d as typical V. anguillarum serotype O2. SDS-PAGE and Western blot ana lysis of both whole bacterial cells and purified lipopolysaccharides ( LPS) showed that the LPS structures were heterogeneous. ELISA analyses using adsorbed antisera identified the presence of two different subg roups within serogroup O2, which correspond with O2a/O2alpha and O2b/O 2beta described previously.