This study is an initial description and discussion of the kidney and liver microbial communities of five common fish species sampled from four sites along the Eastern Mediterranean Sea shoreline. The goals of the present study were to establish a baseline dataset of microbial communities associated with the tissues of wild marine fish, in order to examine species‐specific microbial characteristics and to screen for candidate pathogens. This issue is especially relevant due to the development of mariculture farms and the possible transmission of pathogens from wild to farmed fish and vice versa. Although fish were apparently healthy, 16S rRNA NGS screening identified three potential fish bacterial pathogens: Photobacterium damselae, Vibrio harveyi and Streptococcus iniae. Based on the distribution patterns and relative abundance, 16 samples were classified as potential pathogenic bacteria‐infected samples (PPBIS). Hence, PPBIS prevalence was significantly higher in kidneys than in liver samples and variation was found between the fish species. Significant differences were observed between fish species, organs and sites, indicating the importance of the environmental conditions on the fish microbiome. We applied a consistent sampling and analytical method for monitoring in long‐term surveys which may be incorporated within other marine fish pathogens surveys around the world.

中文翻译：

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东地中海野生海鱼肝脏和肾脏组织内的特定病原体和微生物丰富度。

这项研究是对东地中海沿岸四个地点采样的五种常见鱼类的肾脏和肝脏微生物群落的初步描述和讨论。本研究的目标是建立与野生海鱼组织相关的微生物群落的基线数据集，以检查特定物种的微生物特征并筛选候选病原体。由于海水养殖场的发展以及病原体可能从野生鱼类转移到养殖鱼类，反之亦然，这一问题尤为重要。尽管鱼类看似健康，但16S rRNA NGS筛查发现了三种潜在的鱼类细菌病原体：丹姆氏菌，哈维弧菌和猪链球菌。根据分布模式和相对丰度，将16个样本分类为潜在病原菌感染样本（PPBIS）。因此，肾脏中PPBIS的患病率显着高于肝脏样品，并且在鱼类之间发现了变异。在鱼类，器官和部位之间观察到显着差异，表明环境条件对鱼类微生物组的重要性。我们在长期调查中采用了一致的采样和分析方法进行监测，该方法可能会纳入全球其他海洋鱼类病原体调查中。