Plant, Animal & Microbe Genomes X Conference Plant, Animal & Microbe Genomes X ConferenceJanuary 12-16, 2002
Town & Country Convention Center
San Diego, CA
Workshop: Aquaculture
The fish immune system comprises of the non-specific and specific immune defences, having both humoral and cellular mechanisms to resist against infectious diseases. However, the biodefence and immune related system of fish are poorly understood at the molecular level. Characterization of immune system of fish is important for development of disease resistance fish and further understanding of the evolution or diversity of fish immune system. In view of the above reasons, we used Japanese flounder for characterization of immune system in the molecular level. Expressed sequence tag (EST) analysis has been conducted on Japanese flounder, Paralichthys olivaceus liver, spleen, skin, hirame rhabdo virus infected Japanese flounder leukocytes and Ig positive cells, and ConA/PMA or LPS treated leukocytes and kidney cells cDNA libraries. We sequence more than 3,000 clones of these cDNA libraries. Many putatively identified biodefence and immune response related genes, such as cytokines, cytokine receptors, cell surface molecules, transcription factors, complement component, anti-microbial proteins, proteases and protease inhibitors were identified. Currently the expression pattern for most of immune and defense related genes, from LPS or ConA/PMA treated peripheral blood leukocytes and after DNA vaccination study are characterized by RT-PCR and quantitative real-time fluorescence RT-PCR. The expression patterns and the amount of expressed mRNAs of these genes were different in the various genes examined, stimulations and time points. We will also discuss the mapping of some ESTs which has microsatellite markers of their non-coding regions.