Collagen regulates the activation of professional phagocytes of the teleost fish gilthead seabream.

The innate immune system mediates the initial inflammatory response that follows infection or injury. Although the innate immune response of fish to infection has been relatively well characterized during recent years at both cellular and molecular levels, no studies have examined the role of extracellular matrix (ECM) in the regulation of innate immunity and inflammation. We report here that collagen and gelatin in vitro were able to prime the respiratory burst of phagocytes from the bony fish gilthead seabream. In addition, collagen and gelatin induced a specific set of immune-related and ECM remodelling enzymes that substantially differed from that induced by pathogen-associated molecular patterns. Notably, both collagen and gelatin induced the expression of interleukin-1beta, chemokine (C-C motif) ligand 4 and matrix metalopeptidases (MMP) 9 and 13 in acidophilic granulocytes and macrophages but were unable to significantly increase the expression of other pro-inflammatory genes. Furthermore, it was found that the MMP2/MMP9 inhibitor V had a dose-dependent inhibitory effect on seabream phagocyte activation by either collagen or gelatin. In contrast, pre-treatment of collagen and gelatin by collagenase resulted in a higher stimulatory capacity compared to non-digested proteins. Collectively, these results indicate that collagen fragments produced by the action of different host proteases, and probably released by infectious agents, are sensed by fish phagocytes. Therefore, we propose that, besides to the well-established response to infection, the innate immune system of fish is able to respond to tissue injury.