Hypermucoviscous Multidrug-Resistant Strain LL2208 Isolated from Chinese Longsnout Catfish (): Highly Similar to Human Strains.

Outbreaks of bacterial diseases occur in farmed Chinese longsnout catfish (). Due to limited information on aquatic variicola-infected animals, this study aimed to identify strain LL2208 isolated from diseased , determine its biological features, and evaluate its risk to public health. Strain LL2208 was tested for molecular identification, challenge, string, biofilm formation, and antimicrobial susceptibility. Furthermore, the whole genome of the strain was sequenced and analyzed. Based on molecular identification, strain LL2208 was identified as . Artificial infection showed that this strain was moderately virulent to with an LD = 7.92 × 10 CFU/mL. Antibiotic sensitivity tests showed that this strain was resistant to penicillins, macrolides, aminoglycosides, amphenicols, glycopeptides, and lincosamide, indicating multidrug resistance. Strain LL2208 has a genome size of 5,557,050 bp, with a GC content of 57.38%, harboring 30 antimicrobial resistance genes and numerous virulence-related genes. Its molecular type was ST595-KL16-O5. Collinearity analysis showed that strain LL2208 was highly similar to the human-derived strain. In conclusion, the multidrug-resistant and virulent strain LL2208 was isolated from fish and may have originated from humans. These results provide a foundation for further studies on the transmission of between humans and aquatic animals.