Isolation and Characterization of Aeromonas jandaei from Nile Tilapia in Lake Volta, Ghana, and Its Response to Antibiotics and Herbal Extracts

Abstract

Production of Nile Tilapia Oreochromis niloticus contributes to economic growth in many countries. However, there has been a decline in its production over the years due to the influx of bacterial infections, with Aeromonas jandaei as an emerging threat. In this study, we identified and characterized A. jandaei from cage-cultured Nile Tilapia in Akosombo Stratum II of Lake Volta in Ghana and evaluated its response to commonly used antibiotics using the disc diffusion and agar well diffusion methods for herbal extracts at various concentrations (10, 30, 50, 70, and 100 mg/mL). The herbs considered included guava Psidium guajava leaf, bitter leaf Vernonia amygdalina, neem Azadirachta indica leaf, and their cocktail (GBNL in the ratio of 1:1:1). The bacterium was isolated from swab samples from the head kidneys of 27 moribund Nile Tilapia collected from nine fish farms. Samples were screened for A. jandaei by culturing and identification using morphological and molecular techniques. The bacterium isolate from fish in the study, identified as A. jandaei GH-AS II, had 92–93% identity to A. jandaei reference strains. Infection of healthy Nile Tilapia (n = 210) with the bacterium isolate showed that 1.0 × 10⁵ CFU/mL was the lethal dose causing 50% mortality. Antibiotic susceptibility testing showed that A. jandaei GH-AS II was resistant to tetracycline and ampicillin. Herbal extracts at the various concentrations inhibited the growth of the bacterium isolate, with a significant increment in the zones of inhibition with increasing concentrations of leaf extracts. However, GBNL showed prominence compared to the other extracts only at 100 mg/mL. Management of A. jandaei GH-AS II by using herbal extracts at Nile Tilapia farms in Lake Volta may be recommended since the use of antibiotics, such as tetracycline and ampicillin, may not yield the needed result.