This study describes the abundance of multidrug-resistantVibriosassociated with marine invertebrate hosts from the Andaman Sea, India. Thirty-eightVibriostrains were isolated from surface mucus layers of coralPorites,Goniastrea, Pocillopora, Fungia, and eggs of spiny lobster (Panulirus penicillatus). Phenotypically, the majority of strains exhibited growth at a wide range of temperatures, salt tolerance, and diverse nutritional requirements. All the strains had more than 97% 16S rRNA sequence similarity with type species of the genusVibriowhereVibrio fortis, andVibrio alginolyticuswere predominant. Multilocus Sequence Analysis (MLSA) using eight housekeeping genes namelyftsZ,gapA,gyrB,mreB,pyrH,recA,rpoA,andtopAdistributed the strains into 6 reported clades i.e.,Harveyi, Ponticus, Nereis, Orientalis, Splendidus,andMediterraneiwhere nearly half of the total strains represented the cladeHarveyi, followed by the cladeSplendidus.Likewise, the PFGE profile indicated genomic heterogeneity among the strains resulting in their distribution in five major clusters. Resistance to different antimicrobials was tested following the disc diffusion method where all strains were found susceptible to chloramphenicol (30 mu g) and resistant to streptomycin (10 mu g), vancomycin (30 mu g), sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim (25 mu g). Moreover, the resistant phenotype to other antimicrobials confirmed the abundance of multidrug resistance strains in this marine environment.

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