Grant: Alliance Grants

Canadian finfish aquaculture is a significant driver of the BC economy employing thousands of individuals along the BC coast. Mowi Canada West (MCW), the largest producer of farmed Atlantic salmon in BC, loses many thousands of marketable fish to "tenacibaculosis" caused by an infection with multiple species of the bacteria Tenacibaculum. Costs for antibiotic treatment contribute to additional financial losses which compounds the impact of Tenacibaculum infections. A current theory related to the underlying mechanism of tenacibaculosis is the disruption of bacterial communities (dysbiosis) found on fish and the surrounding netpen environment following the transfer of salmon smolts from freshwater hatcheries to saltwater growout net pens. Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) offers the ability to both identify and quantify the bacterial community on fish and within water surrounding net pen sites. This project will build on a strong partnership between University of Guelph (UGuelph) Vancouver Island University (VIU) and MCW established through NSERC Engage, Engage Plus grants, and several local grants bringing VIU researchers together with local companies and the BC Center for Aquatic Health Sciences (CAHS). The objectives of this project are to 1) collect and screen Tenacibaculum Isolates from MCW BC net pen sites for minimum inhibitory concentrations to 11 veterinary antibiotics used in aquaculture; 2) produce full genomic comparison of the select Tenacibaculum isolates including virulent factors, antimicrobial resistance genes and phylogenomic analysis using the minION sequencing platform; 3) develop a target gene high-throughput assay to investigate Tenacibaculum species community distribution and dysbiosis using the Illumina MiSeq platform.; 4) assess the community distribution and relative abundance of Tenacibaculum species in salmon tissue samples taken pre-, during, and post-clinical outbreaks of tenacibaculosis experienced at MCW net pen sites in 2019-2020. This project will increase MCW's ability to manage disease presence, improve fish welfare, mitigate unnecessary antibiotic usage, and potentially identify key Tenacibaculum species for future vaccine development.