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Molecular Pathogens (online), 2011, Vol. 2
ISSN 1925-1998
http://mp.sophiapublisher.com
- 28 -
Research Article Open Access
An Invasive Species Red-eared Slider (
Trachemys scripta
elegans
) Carrying
Salmonella
Pathogens in Hainan Island
Lan Shen , Haitao Shi , Ruiping Wang , Dan Liu , Xianpeng Pang
College of Life Sciences, Hainan Normal University, Haikou, 571158, P.R. China
Corresponding author; wrp@hainnu.edu.cn, haitao-shi@263.net;
Authors
Molecular Pathogens 2011, Vol 2 No 4 DOI: 10.5376/mp.2011.02.0004
Received: 19 May, 2011
Accepted: 02 Jul., 2011
Published: 01 Aug., 2011
This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and
reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Preferred citation for this article as:
Shen et al., 2011, An Invasive Species Red-eared Slider (
Trachemys scripta elegans
) Carrying
Salmonella
Pathogens in Hainan Island, Molecular Pathogens,
Vol.2 No.4 (doi: 10.5376/mp.2011.02.0004)
Abstract
The red-eared slider (
Trachemys scripta elegans
) is a semiaquatic turtles belonging to the family Emydidae. It is native to
the southern United States, but has become established in other places because of pet releases. It is the most popular pet turtle in the
United States and also popular in the rest of the world. In China the red-eared slider listed as an invasive and quarantinable species
due to carring the
Salmonella
pathogens. In this research we collected 68 individuls of the wild red-eared sliders from Nandujiang
(Nandu river), Wanquanhe (Wanquan river) and Haikoudonghu (East Lake of Haikou City) in Hainan island of the most southern of
China. We sampled the tissue and mucus from cloacae of the red-eared sliders used for
Salmonella
bacterial culture to observe its
morphology, biochemical characteristics and serotypes. The result showed that the total carrier rate of
Salmonella
carring in the
tested red-eared sliders reached 54.41% (n=68), of which the carrier rate in Nandujiang were 53.85% (n=26), in Wanquanhe
58.82%(n=34),and Haikoudonghu 50% (n=8). The serotypes of
Salmonella
in the tested red-eared sliders were indentified to be
S .litchfiled
,
S. chailey
,
S. senftenberg
, and
S. Stanley
. In this research we strong suggested that the wild red-eared slider carrying
Salmonella
pathogens in Hainan island be potential dangerous impact on the ecological system and island residents.
Keywords
Red-eared slider (
Trachemys scripta elegans
); Invasive species;
Salmonella
; Hainan island
Background
Salmonella
is an important zoonotic pathogen of
Enterobacteriaceae
, which is gram-negative, faculta-
tive anaerobic bacterium. Currently
Salmonella
has
found 2449 serotypes in the world (Brenner et al.,
2000), there are about 292 serotypes reported in China
(Zhang and Zhu, 2002). As early as 1975, turtles were
ascertained to carry and transmit
Salmonella
,
red-eared sliders, as the same as many other reptiles
can carry and transmit
Salmonella
, humans may
Salmonella
through direct or indirect contacting with
red-eared sliders and other reptiles, thereby causing
typhoid, paratyphoid, gastroenteritis and other
diseases and even death (Ackman et al., 1995).
Therefore, FDA (the Food and Drug Administration)
in 1975 banned the pet turtle trade except for
education purpose use in the USA.
In the United States, red-eared sliders is popular pet
turtles, particularly loved by children. Each year about
1.4 million Americans infected with
Salmonella
.
Reptile and amphibians exposure is associated with
~74,000
Salmonella
infections annually in the United
States (Mermin et al., 2004). Clearly, pet turtle has a
serious public health impact because of carrying
Salmonella
. Previous studies of
Salmonella
focused
on captive turtles (McCoy and Seidler, 1973) and
commercial turtles (Siebeling et al., 1984). Under the
conditions of captive wildlife, the detection of
Salmonella
in reptiles was higher than that in
mammals and birds (Gopee et al., 2000). There are
few studies of
Salmonella
on the turtles on the wild
environment reported.
Red-eared sliders in China is a foreign invasive
species, Guangdong and other southern regions of
China have the habit of eating red-eared sliders, it was
also the red-eared sliders as pets. So far, There is no
information on wild red-eared sliders carrying
salmonella
reported. In recent years, red-eared sliders