ORIGINAL PAPER

• Main Authors: Are Nylund, Æ Karl, F. Ottem, Æ Kuninori Watanabe, Egil Karlsbakk, Æ Bjørn Krossøy, Rdna Æ Fopa Æ Phylogeny
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: of Francisella; Family Francisellaceae. Keywords Cod; Norway; Gadus morhua
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.464.9847; http://www.torsk.net/fileadmin/frisk_torsk/Publ_I.pdf

Abstract In 2004, a new disease was detected in cod (Gadus morhua) in western Norway. Affected cod had white granulomas in the visceral organs and skin. A species of Francisella was isolated on blood agar plates from moribund cod. The bacterium could be grown at temperatures ranging from 6 to 22C, but did not grow at 37C. Challenge experiments showed that Francisella sp. was the cause for the new disease. The 16S rDNA gene sequence from Francisella sp. showed 99.17% similarity to F. philomiragia, and the 16S–23S ribosomal RNA intergenic spacer (249 nt), shows a similarity with that from Francisella isolated from tilapia and F. tular-ensis of 96.8 and 35.9%, respectively. The 23S sequence is more similar to F. tularensis, 97.7 % (2,862 nt), com-pared to the tilapia isolate 96.8 % (2,131 nt). The partial putative outer membrane protein (FopA) sequence (781 nt) from Francisella sp. shows a similarity with that from F. tularensis and F. philomiragia of 77.3 and 98.2%, respectively. Based on sequence data, culturing temperatures and pathogenicity for cod, it is suggested that this Francisella sp. from cod could be a new species