Disparate developmental patterns of immune responses to bacterial and viral infections in fish

We thank Dr J.-P. Levraud and S. Magadan for critical comments on the manuscript. This work was supported by the European Community’s Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007-13) under Grant Agreements 222719 LIFECYCLE and 311993 TARGETFISH, and by institutional grants from the University of Aberdeen, and Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique. Corrigendum: Disparate developmental patterns of immune responses to bacterial and viral infections in fish Scientific Reports 6, Article number: 18524 (2016) doi:10.1038/srep18524 There is an error in the Materials and Methods section of this Article. “A rainbow trout double haploid clone, named B5731” should read: “Rainbow trout from the INRA ‘synthetic’ strain31”Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Common and specific downstream signaling targets controlled by Tlr2 and Tlr5 innate immune signaling in zebrafish

BACKGROUND: Although the responses to many pathogen associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) in cell cultures and extracted organs are well characterized, there is little known of transcriptome responses to PAMPs in whole organisms. To characterize this in detail, we have performed RNAseq analysis of responses of zebrafish embryos to injection of PAMPs in the caudal vein at one hour after exposure. We have compared two ligands that in mammals have been shown to specifically activate the TLR2 and TLR5 receptors: Pam3CSK4 and flagellin, respectively. RESULTS: We identified a group of 80 common genes that respond with high stringency selection to stimulations with both PAMPs, which included several well-known immune marker genes such as il1b and tnfa. Surprisingly, we also identified sets of 48 and 42 genes that specifically respond to either Pam3CSK4 or flagellin, respectively, after a comparative filtering approach. Remarkably, in the Pam3CSK4 specific set, there was a set of transcription factors with more than 2 fold-change, as confirmed by qPCR analyses, including cebpb, fosb, nr4a1 and egr3. We also showed that the regulation of the Pam3CSK4 and flagellin specifically responding sets is inhibited by knockdown of tlr2 or tlr5, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Our studies show that Pam3CSK4 and flagellin can stimulate the Tlr2 and Tlr5 signaling pathways leading to common and specific responses in the zebrafish embryo system. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12864-015-1740-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

Transcriptional Responses of Resistant and Susceptible Fish Clones to the Bacterial Pathogen Flavobacterium psychrophilum

Flavobacterium psychrophilum is a bacterial species that represents one of the most important pathogens for aquaculture worldwide, especially for salmonids. To gain insights into the genetic basis of the natural resistance to F. psychrophilum, we selected homozygous clones of rainbow trout with contrasted susceptibility to the infection. We compared the transcriptional response to the bacteria in the pronephros of a susceptible and a resistant line by micro-array analysis five days after infection. While the basal transcriptome of healthy fish was significantly different in the resistant and susceptible lines, the transcriptome modifications induced by the bacteria involved essentially the same genes and pathways. The response to F. psychrophilum involved antimicrobial peptides, complement, and a number of enzymes and chemokines. The matrix metalloproteases mmp9 and mmp13 were among the most highly induced genes in both genetic backgrounds. Key genes of both pro- and anti-inflammatory response such as IL1 and IL10, were up-regulated with a greater magnitude in susceptible animals where the bacterial load was also much higher. While higher resistance to F. psychrophilum does not seem to be based on extensive differences in the orientation of the immune response, several genes including complement C3 showed stronger induction in the resistant fish. They may be important for the variation of susceptibility to the infection

Identification of Vascular and Hematopoietic Genes Downstream of etsrp by Deep Sequencing in Zebrafish

The transcription factor etsrp/Er71/Etv2 is a master control gene for vasculogenesis in all species studied to date. It is also required for hematopoiesis in zebrafish and mice. Several novel genes expressed in vasculature have been identified through transcriptional profiling of zebrafish embryos overexpressing etsrp by microarrays. Here we re-examined this transcriptional profile by Illumina RNA-sequencing technology, revealing a substantially increased number of candidate genes regulated by etsrp. Expression studies of 50 selected candidate genes from this dataset resulted in the identification of 39 new genes that are expressed in vascular cells. Regulation of these genes by etsrp was confirmed by their ectopic induction in etsrp overexpressing and decreased expression in etsrp deficient embryos. Our studies demonstrate the effectiveness of the RNA-sequencing technology to identify biologically relevant genes in zebrfish and produced a comprehensive profile of genes previously unexplored in vascular endothelial cell biology

Septins restrict inflammation and protect zebrafish larvae from Shigella infection

Shigella flexneri, a Gram-negative enteroinvasive pathogen, causes inflammatory destruction of the human intestinal epithelium. Infection by S. flexneri has been well-studied in vitro and is a paradigm for bacterial interactions with the host immune system. Recent work has revealed that components of the cytoskeleton have important functions in innate immunity and inflammation control. Septins, highly conserved cytoskeletal proteins, have emerged as key players in innate immunity to bacterial infection, yet septin function in vivo is poorly understood. Here, we use S. flexneri infection of zebrafish (Danio rerio) larvae to study in vivo the role of septins in inflammation and infection control. We found that depletion of Sept15 or Sept7b, zebrafish orthologs of human SEPT7, significantly increased host susceptibility to bacterial infection. Live-cell imaging of Sept15-depleted larvae revealed increasing bacterial burdens and a failure of neutrophils to control infection. Strikingly, Sept15-depleted larvae present significantly increased activity of Caspase-1 and more cell death upon S. flexneri infection. Dampening of the inflammatory response with anakinra, an antagonist of interleukin-1 receptor (IL-1R), counteracts Sept15 deficiency in vivo by protecting zebrafish from hyper-inflammation and S. flexneri infection. These findings highlight a new role for septins in host defence against bacterial infection, and suggest that septin dysfunction may be an underlying factor in cases of hyper-inflammation

Establishing Zebrafish as a Novel Exercise Model: Swimming Economy, Swimming-Enhanced Growth and Muscle Growth Marker Gene Expression

Zebrafish has been largely accepted as a vertebrate multidisciplinary model but its usefulness as a model for exercise physiology has been hampered by the scarce knowledge on its swimming economy, optimal swimming speeds and cost of transport. Therefore, we have performed individual and group-wise swimming experiments to quantify swimming economy and to demonstrate the exercise effects on growth in adult zebrafish

Genome-Wide Identification of Molecular Pathways and Biomarkers in Response to Arsenic Exposure in Zebrafish Liver

10.1371/journal.pone.0068737PLoS ONE87-POLN

Cyclic-di-GMP regulates lipopolysaccharide modification and contributes to Pseudomonas aeruginosa immune evasion

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a Gram-negative bacterial pathogen associated with acute and chronic infections. The universal c-di-GMP second messenger is instrumental in the switch from a motile lifestyle to resilient biofilm as in the cystic fibrosis lung. The SadC diguanylate cyclase is associated with this patho-adaptive transition. Here we identified an unrecognized SadC partner, WarA, which we show is a methyltransferase in complex with a putative kinase WarB. We established that WarA binds to c-di-GMP, which potentiates its methyltransferase activity. Together, WarA and WarB have structural similarities with the bi-functional Escherichia coli LPS O antigen regulator WbdD. Strikingly, WarA influences P. aeruginosa O antigen modal distribution and interacts with the LPS biogenesis machinery. LPS is known to modulate the immune response in the host, and by using a zebrafish infection model, we implicate WarA in the ability of P. aeruginosa to evade detection by the host.BBSRC & Wellcome Trus

Rapid screening of innate immune gene expression in zebrafish using reverse transcription - multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>With the zebrafish increasingly being used in immunology and infectious disease research, there is a need for efficient molecular tools to evaluate immune gene expression in this model species. RT-MLPA (reverse transcription - multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification) provides a sensitive and reproducible method, in which fluorescently labelled amplification products of unique lengths are produced for a defined set of target transcripts. The method employs oligonucleotide probes that anneal to adjacent sites on a target sequence and are then joined by a heat-stable ligase. Subsequently, multiplex PCR with universal primers gives rise to amplicons that can be analyzed with standard sequencing equipment and relative quantification software. Allowing the simultaneous quantification of around 40 selected markers in a one-tube assay, RT-MLPA is highly useful for high-throughput screening applications.</p> <p>Findings</p> <p>We employed a dual-colour RT-MLPA probe design for chemical synthesis of probe pairs for 34 genes involved in Toll-like receptor signalling, transcriptional activation of the immune response, cytokine and chemokine production, and antimicrobial defence. In addition, six probe pairs were included for reference genes unaffected by infections in zebrafish. First, we established assay conditions for adult zebrafish infected with different strains of <it>Mycobacterium marinum </it>causing acute and chronic disease. Addition of competitor oligonucleotides was required to achieve peak heights in a similar range for genes with different expression levels. For subsequent analysis of embryonic samples it was necessary to adjust the amounts of competitor oligonucleotides, as the expression levels of several genes differed to a large extent between adult and embryonic tissues. Assay conditions established for one-day-old <it>Salmonella typhimurium</it>-infected embryos could be transferred without further adjustment to five-day-old <it>M. marinum</it>-infected larvae. RT-MLPA results were compared with results of previous transcriptome analyses and with real-time PCR data, demonstrating a good correlation between all expression analysis methods.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The RT-MLPA assay developed in this study provides a rapid, cheap, and robust analysis tool for simultaneous quantification of a set of 34 innate immune response genes. With adjustment of conditions, the assay is suitable for infection studies in both adult and embryonic zebrafish. Application of RT-MLPA will facilitate high-throughput screening of immune responses in the zebrafish model.</p

Zebrafish Embryos as a Model to Study Bacterial Virulence

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