Vibrio tubiashii is a Gram-negative, rod-shaped (0.5 um-1.5 um) marine bacterium that uses a single polar flagellum for motility.

[1][3][4][5][6] Vibrio tubiashii was originally isolated from juvenile and larval bivalve mollusks suffering from bacillary necrosis,[7][8] now called vibriosis.

[1] Since its discovery and identification, V. tubiashii has been implicated in shellfish vibriosis across the globe,[1][5][6] and more recently, coral diseases.

In addition to shellfish disease, Vibrio-derived zinc-metalloprotease could be an integral virulence factor in diseases of scleractinian corals as it was shown to cause photoinactivation of the coral endosymbiont Symbiodinium, leading to tissue color loss and eventual tissue death.

[11] The hemolytic activity of V. tubiashii cultures increases during early growth stages and progressively decreases throughout the stationary phase, while proteolytic activity shows a gradual increase starting in the early stationary phase, suggesting that pathogenesis in this organism requires higher cell density.