Risk assessment of Vibrio parahaemolyticus from food contact surfaces in seafood pre-processing plants: A potential threat to value-added processed seafood in India

Authors

1 Department of Marine Biology, Microbiology, and Biochemistry, School of Marine Sciences, Cochin University of Science and Technology, Cochin- 682 016, Kerala, India

2 Post Doctoral Research Officer, School of Natural Sciences Bangor University, LL57 2DG, UK

3 Department of Biosciences, M.E.S College, Marampally, Aluva, Ernakulam- 683107, India

10.22092/ijfs.2025.133123

Abstract

Vibrio parahaemolyticus, autochthonous to marine and estuarine environment, is responsible for foodborne outbreaks associated with seafood. In the present study, a total of 52 V. parahaemolyticus strains isolated from various food contact surfaces in seafood pre-processing units located in Cochin were screened for antimicrobial resistance, virulence and biofilm forming capability as part of risk assessment. Multidrug resistance (MDR) was detected in 94.23% of the strains with higher resistance to ampicillin and colistin. Virulence related trh and tdh genes were present in 30.76% and 3.84% of the isolates, respectively. Among the T3SS genes, T3SS1 and T3SS2β were present in 75% and 23.07% of the isolates and none of them harboured T3SS2α genes. Among the strains, 86.54% of them were biofilm producers. V. parahaemolyticus showed significantly (p<0.05) moderate positive correlations (0.4<r<0.6) between antimicrobial pairs belonging to different antimicrobial classes such as AMP and CL (r=0.57), PI and CL (r=0.54), CB and CL (r=0.48) and S and CL (r=0.48). Our findings highlight the presence of biofilm-forming MDR V. parahaemolyticus strains with virulence potential on food contact surfaces, thereby emphasizes the need for continuous monitoring of foodborne pathogens and for improving seafood safety in food processing facilities and retail environments.

Keywords

Iranian Journal of Fisheries Sciences
Volume 24, Issue 2
March 2025
Pages 435-453

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