Draft Genome Sequence of Vibrio parahaemolyticus Strain VP14, Isolated from a Penaeus vannamei Culture Farm Ashok Kumar Jangam, a T. Bhuvaneswari, b A. Navaneeth Krishnan, b Vinaya Kumar Katneni, a Satheesha Avunje, b Monendra Grover, c Sujeet Kumar, b S. V. Alavandi, b K. K. Vijayan b a Nutrition Genetics and Biotechnology Division, ICAR-Central Institute of Brackishwater Aquaculture, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India b Aquatic Animal Health and Environment Division, ICAR-Central Institute of Brackishwater Aquaculture, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India c Division of Computer Applications, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute, New Delhi, India ABSTRACT Here, we report the draft genome sequence of an isolate of Vibrio para- haemolyticus, VP14, recovered from the gut of Penaeus vannamei shrimp farmed in southern India. The genome of VP14 comprised 5,224,046 bp with a GC content of 45.3% and contained 5,326 genes, including 4,972 coding sequences. V ibrio parahaemolyticus is a Gram-negative halophilic bacterium, abundant in brack- ish water and marine environments. While most strains are nonpathogenic, some cause disease in humans and aquatic animals. Acute hepatopancreatic necrosis disease (AHPND) has emerged as an important disease of concern in the shrimp farming industry, causing substantial economic losses globally (1). AHPND is caused by specific strains of V. parahaemolyticus harboring a plasmid that encodes PirA vp and PirB vp (2). During disease surveillance of farmed shrimp, V. parahaemolyticus was isolated in the Nellore District of Andhra Pradesh, India, from the gut of P. vannamei with reported mortality within 40 days of culture. The purified bacterial isolate was phenotypically identified as V. parahaemolyticus and designated VP14. Further, the species was con- firmed by species-specific PCR tests based on the vpm, toxR, and gyrB genes (3) and 16S rRNA gene sequencing. However, this isolate did not reproduce AHPND following previously described experimental protocols (1), and it also failed to produce AHPND- specific PCR amplicons (4). The VP14 genome was found to possess a type III secretin system 1 (T3SS1) based on a positive PCR test for the vscP gene. However, a negative PCR test was obtained for the vscC2, vopB2, vscS2, and vopC (5) genes, which are indicative of the presence of T3SS2. Further, the VP14 isolate could not induce mortality to juvenile shrimp during infection experiments. To generate the VP14 genome, DNA was initially isolated using a PowerLyzer UltraClean microbial DNA isolation kit (Mo Bio, USA) and sequenced on the Illumina HiSeq platform. The de novo assembly with 1,754,630 paired-end reads of 250 bp in the MaSuRCA assembler (6) generated a genome of 5,224,046 bp with a 45.3% GC content. The assembly contained 94 scaffolds with a coverage of 84, an N 50 length of 279,839 bp, and a mean length of 55,575 bp. Genome annotation was performed with the NCBI Prokaryotic Genome Annotation Pipeline (PGAP) (7) and subsequently with the Rapid Annotations using Subsystems Technology (RAST) server (8). The genome contained 5,326 genes, including 4,972 coding sequences, 10 5S rRNAs, 15 16S rRNAs, 12 23S rRNAs, 161 tRNAs, 4 noncoding RNAs, and 152 pseudogenes. The VP14 genome was found to have all 39 virulence factors listed as T3SS1 (responsible for causing cytotoxicity of host cells) in the Virulence Factors Database (VFDB, http://www.mgc.ac.cn/VFs), as well as the MAM7 gene (responsible for mediat- ing attachment of bacteria to host cells). However, other virulence factors listed in the Received 8 February 2018 Accepted 13 February 2018 Published 15 March 2018 Citation Jangam AK, Bhuvaneswari T, Krishnan AN, Katneni VK, Avunje S, Grover M, Kumar S, Alavandi SV, Vijayan KK. 2018. Draft genome sequence of Vibrio parahaemolyticus strain VP14, isolated from a Penaeus vannamei culture farm. Genome Announc 6:e00149-18. https:// doi.org/10.1128/genomeA.00149-18. Copyright © 2018 Jangam et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Address correspondence to K. K. Vijayan, vjciba2014@gmail.com. PROKARYOTES crossm Volume 6 Issue 11 e00149-18 genomea.asm.org 1