Vibrio harveyi: pretty problems in paradise

Abstract

Despite being known for almost half a century, Vibrio harveyi was considered only a pretty, bioluminescent, environmental bacterium (Color Plate 13) that made balmy nights more magical when it contributed to water bioluminescence as bathers splashed around tropicallagool1s. With the advent of large scale prawn aquaculture, V. harveyi started to get attention as a pathogen, particularly in Australia and the Philippines. From the mid-1980s, more and more animals, particularly invertebrates in the tropics and fish in the more temperate areas, were recorded as being infected by V. harveyi. Recently, literature on V. harveyi has gained a wider audience as control of its bioluminescent pathway is elucidated and shown to be substantially different .from and more complicated than that of Vibrio fischeri. Similarly, the bacteriophage- mediated virulence in V. harveyi has also made scientists more interested in this bacterium.