Development of Kaptive databases for Vibrio parahaemolyticus O- and K-antigen serotyping

Vibrio parahaemolyticus is an important food-borne human pathogen and is divided in 16 O- serotypes and 71 K-serotypes. Agglutination tests are still the gold standard for serotyping, but many V. parahaemolyticus isolates are not typable by agglutination. An alternative for agglutination tests is serotyping using whole genome sequencing data. In this study, V. parahaemolyticus isolates are serotyped and sequenced, and all known and several novel O- and K-loci are identified. We developed Kaptive databases for all O- and K-loci after manual curation of the loci. These Kaptive databases with the identified V. parahaemolyticus O- and K -loci can be used to identify the O- and K-serotypes of V. parahaemolyticus isolates from genome sequences.