Institute of Aquatic Biology and Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Biofunctional Molecules, College of Life Science and Chemistry, Jiangsu Second Normal University, Nanjing, China.
J Fish Dis. 2021 Mar;44(3):305-313. doi: 10.1111/jfd.13284. Epub 2020 Oct 26.
The microsporidia Hepatospora eriocheir has been identified as an emerging pathogenic agent in the commercial crab Eriocheir sinensis. Histology analysis indicated that hepatopancreas was a significant target for H. eriocheir infection. However, the functional consequences of such tissue tropism remain poorly studied. Considering that hepatopancreas was a centre for lipid metabolism and energy supply, we furtherly investigated the comparative lipid metabolism profiles between the control and H. eriocheir-infected hepatopancreas by liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS)-based lipidomics approach. Results confirmed that H. eriocheir induced apparent alterations of lipid metabolic phenotypes in hepatopancreas. Sixty-seven lipids, including triglyceride (TG), diglyceride (DG), sphingomyelin (SM), phosphatidylcholine (PC), phosphatidylethanolamine (PE), phosphatidylglycerol (PG), phosphatidylinositol (PI), ceramide (CER), hexosyl ceramide (HEX CER) and (o-acyl)-1-hydroxy fatty acid (OAHFA), were significantly changed and could be determined as effective biomarkers. TG and DG accounted for the largest proportion (58.2% and 11.9%, respectively). Notably, over 94% of the distinguished lipids presented a similar modified trend with profoundly reduced contents, implying blatant energy exploitation of the parasite. These lipids were involved in pathways of energy and lipid metabolism and signal regulation. Such information suggests that H. eriocheir possibly "starves" the host via destructing hepatopancreas tissue together with appropriate host energy resources, leading to the corresponding alterations of lipid metabolism and a decrease in the colour of the hepatopancreas.
已鉴定出微孢子虫 Hepatospora eriocheir 是商业蟹中华绒螯蟹的一种新兴致病因子。组织学分析表明，肝胰腺是 H. eriocheir 感染的重要靶标。然而，这种组织嗜性的功能后果仍研究甚少。考虑到肝胰腺是脂质代谢和能量供应的中心，我们进一步通过基于液相色谱-质谱（LC-MS）的脂质组学方法研究了对照和 H. eriocheir 感染的肝胰腺之间的比较脂质代谢谱。结果证实，H. eriocheir 诱导肝胰腺脂质代谢表型明显改变。鉴定出 67 种脂质，包括甘油三酯（TG）、二甘油（DG）、神经鞘磷脂（SM）、磷脂酰胆碱（PC）、磷脂酰乙醇胺（PE）、磷脂酰甘油（PG）、磷脂酰肌醇（PI）、神经酰胺（CER）、己糖神经酰胺（HEX CER）和（O-酰基）-1-羟基脂肪酸（OAHFA），它们发生了显著变化，可以作为有效的生物标志物。TG 和 DG 分别占最大比例（分别为 58.2%和 11.9%）。值得注意的是，区分出的脂质中超过 94%表现出相似的变化趋势，含量明显降低，表明寄生虫明显地利用了宿主的能量。这些脂质参与了能量和脂质代谢以及信号调节途径。这些信息表明，H. eriocheir 可能通过破坏肝胰腺组织和适当的宿主能量资源“饿死”宿主，导致脂质代谢相应改变和肝胰腺颜色减退。
