An outbreak of visceral white nodules disease caused by Pseudomonas plecoglossicida at a water temperature of 12°C in cultured large yellow croaker (Larimichthys crocea) in China

Visceral white nodules disease (VWND) caused by Pseudomonas plecoglossicida is a common disease in cage-farmed large yellow croaker (Larimichthys crocea) in China. VWND usually occurred at water temperature of 16–19℃, resulting in high mortality in farmed large yellow croaker. Now, P. plecoglossicida as its pathogen has been considered nonpathogenic at 7–12℃. During February 2019, an infectious disease outbreak was observed in cage-farmed large yellow croaker at a water temperature of 12℃ in Ningde, China. This disease is characterized by white granulomatous lesions in internal organs of the diseased fish, which was similar with the symptoms of the VWND in large yellow croaker. Then, we isolated a bacterial strain named PQLYC4 from visceral lesions of the diseased fish. The experimental infection studies demonstrated that the strain PQLYC4 was the pathogen of the disease, which was further identified as P. plecoglossicida by the analysis of morphology, 16s rRNA gene homology and average nucleotide identity based on the whole genome sequence. Our results revealed that P. plecoglossicida strain PQLYC4 could cause the outbreak of the VWND at 12℃, a water temperature lower than that reported previously, thus providing new knowledges of prevalence and prevention of the VWND in large yellow croaker.