Development of live attenuated Streptococcus agalactiae vaccine for tilapia via continuous passage in vitro

Abstract Fish Streptococcus agalactiae ( S. agalactiae ) seriously harms the world's aquaculture industry and causes huge economic losses. This study aimed to develop a potential live attenuated vaccine of S. agalactiae . Pre-screened vaccine candidate strain S. agalactiae HN016 was used as starting material to generate an attenuated strain S. agalactiae YM001 by continuous passage in vitro . The biological characteristics, virulence, and stability of YM001 were detected, and the protective efficacy of YM001 immunization in tilapia was also determined. Our results indicated that the growth, staining, characteristics of pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) genotype, and virulence of YM001 were changed significantly as compared to the parental strain HN016. High doses of YM001 by intraperitoneal (IP) injection (1.0 × 10 9  CFU/fish) and oral gavage (1.0 × 10 10  CFU/fish) respectively did not cause any mortality and morbidity in tilapia. The relative percent survivals (RPSs) of fishes immunized with YM001 (1.0 × 10 8  CFU/fish, one time) via injection, immersion, and oral administration were 96.88, 67.22, and 71.81%, respectively, at 15 days, and 93.61, 60.56, and 53.16%, respectively, at 30 days. In all tests with 1–3 times of immunization in tilapia, the dosages at 1 × 10 8 and 1 × 10 9  CFU/fish displayed the similar best results, whereas the immunoprotection of the dosages at 1 × 10 6 and 1 × 10 7  CFU/fish declined significantly ( P 5  CFU/fish hardly displayed any protective effect. In addition, the efficacy of 2–3 times of immunization was significantly higher than that of single immunization ( P P  > 0.05). The level of protective antibody elicited by oral immunization was significantly higher compared to that of the control group ( P S. agalactiae strain YM001; oral immunization of tilapia with this strain produced a good immune protection.