Abstract
Olive flounder, Paralichthys olivaceus is one of the most important cultured fish in Korea, its farming has been negatively impacted by viral, bacterial and parasitic diseases. Streptococcal infection was considered as a serious problem because of significant economic losses in olive flounder farm industry. The development and evaluation of vaccine for protection against infection by this agent were required. We evaluated the safety and efficacy of ${\beta}$-hemolytic Streptococcus (S.) iniae vaccine on olive flounder Three hundreds of flounders (weight $119.8{\pm}20.7g$, body length $22.6{\pm}1.4cm$) were reared in 0.5 tons aquaria in land-marine tank system. Seawater was provided from the sea of Inchon in Korea, and water temperature was set to $22^{\circ}C$ and $25^{\circ}C$ in the vaccination and challenge test, respectively. We used the formalin-inactivated ${\beta}$-hemolytic S. iniae (F2K) vaccine (M VAC INIAE; Kyoritsu seiyaku, Japan) originated in Japan. The vaccine was intraperitoneally administered to fish. Both of vaccinated group and control group were challenged with intraperitoneally injection by virulent S. iniae SI-36 isolates with $1.0{\times}10^7CFU/fish$ at 3 weeks after vaccination. Difference on mortality of control and vaccinated group (90.0 and 15.0%, 76.5 and 8.0% respectively) at two trials were found significant (p<0.05), and relative percent survival were 83.4% and 89.5%, respectively. The dead fishes were showed dark pigmentation of skin, abdominal extension, hemorrhagic ascites, and liver necrosis, and isolated the S. iniae strain from ascites, liver and kidney. We confirmed the safety and efficacy of ${\beta}$-hemolytic S. iniae vaccine by determinations of the optimal management condition and artificial challenge test in olive flounder.
