Biosecurity Group, Cawthron Institute, Nelson, New Zealand.
Aquaculture Group, Cawthron Institute, Nelson, New Zealand.
Front Immunol. 2023 Apr 28;14:1161145. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2023.1161145. eCollection 2023.
Infectious diseases are a major constraint to the expansion of shellfish production worldwide. Pacific oyster mortality syndrome (POMS), a polymicrobial disease triggered by the Ostreid herpesvirus-1 (OsHV-1), has devastated the global Pacific oyster () aquaculture industry. Recent ground-breaking research revealed that possess an immune memory, capable of adaption, which improves the immune response upon a second exposure to a pathogen. This paradigm shift opens the door for developing 'vaccines' to improve shellfish survival during disease outbreaks. In the present study, we developed an assay using hemocytes - the main effectors of the immune system - collected from juvenile oysters susceptible to OsHV-1. The potency of multiple antigen preparations (e.g., chemically and physically inactivated OsHV-1, viral DNA, and protein extracts) to stimulate an immune response in hemocytes was evaluated using flow cytometry and droplet digital PCR to measure immune-related subcellular functions and gene expression, respectively. The immune response to the different antigens was benchmarked against that of hemocytes treated with Poly (I:C). We identified 10 antigen preparations capable of inducing immune stimulation in hemocytes (ROS production and positively expressed immune- related genes) after 1 h of exposure, without causing cytotoxicity. These findings are significant, as they evidence the potential for priming the innate immunity of oysters using viral antigens, which may enable cost-effective therapeutic treatment to mitigate OsHV-1/POMS. Further testing of these antigen preparations using an infection model is essential to validate promising candidate pseudo-vaccines.
传染病是全球贝类养殖发展的主要制约因素。太平洋牡蛎死亡综合征（POMS）是一种由牡蛎疱疹病毒 1（OsHV-1）引发的多微生物疾病，已使全球太平洋牡蛎养殖业遭受重创。最近的突破性研究表明，牡蛎具有免疫记忆能力，能够适应，在第二次接触病原体时提高免疫反应。这种范式转变为开发“疫苗”以提高贝类在疾病爆发期间的存活率开辟了道路。在本研究中，我们使用来自易感染 OsHV-1 的幼牡蛎的血细胞 - 免疫系统的主要效应器 - 开发了一种牡蛎 assay。使用流式细胞术和液滴数字 PCR 分别测量免疫相关亚细胞功能和基因表达，评估了多种抗原制剂（例如化学和物理灭活的 OsHV-1、病毒 DNA 和蛋白提取物）刺激血细胞免疫反应的能力。将不同抗原的免疫反应与用 Poly（I:C）处理的血细胞进行了基准测试。我们鉴定了 10 种抗原制剂，它们能够在 1 小时的暴露后诱导血细胞中的免疫刺激（ROS 产生和阳性表达免疫相关基因），而不会引起细胞毒性。这些发现意义重大，因为它们证明了使用病毒抗原启动牡蛎固有免疫的潜力，这可能使具有成本效益的治疗方法能够减轻 OsHV-1/POMS 的影响。使用 感染模型进一步测试这些抗原制剂对于验证有前途的候选伪疫苗至关重要。
