Study on rapid detection of Vibrio parahaemolyticus

Objective This study was conducted to establish a rapid, simple and accurate method for screening Vibrio parahaemolyticus (VP) by the detection of the specific toxR gene of VP at a species level. Methods Corresponding genes carried by the tested VPs were amplified with primers synthesized based on the sequence of toxR gene. Standard strain and local strain were used as controls, and routine method was used for comparison. Results A total of 286 suspicious VP strains isolated from clinical patients and seafood in Zhejiang Province in 2005 were subjected to VP identification. A total of 62.24% of the strains were identified as VP using the routine method, while the positive rate was 61.54% by using toxR gene detection; there was no statistical difference between them(2=0.03, P0.05). When both of the routine isolation method and the toxR gene detection were performed respectively on 40 samples of bacterial enrichment liquid from seafood, 37 samples were tested VP positive with both of the methods, and the positive rate was 92.5%. Conclusion The toxR gene detection proved to be a simple, specific and sensitive method for the rapid VP screening.