Genomic Tools for Examining Immune Gene Function in Salmonid Fish

Abstract

The health status of farmed fish is central to the efficient production for harvest, as infection, either acute or chronic, will have serious effects on survival, growth, and quality of the final product. A correctly functioning immune system is vital to efficient aquaculture for both defense against invading pathogens and response to vaccines. The increase in sequence data for salmonid fish has allowed the development of tools to examine the immune response at both the transcriptional and the cellular level. This review will focus on identification of novel fish immune-related mRNA species by suppression subtractive hybridization, the expression pattern of mRNAs by transcriptome analysis (microarray), and the use of salmonid cell lines to examine the functional aspects of some key fish immune genes.

Keywords:

• microarray
• subtractive cloning
• cell lines
• cell engineering
• immunology
• salmon

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The present invited review was prepared in the context of the European Specific Support Action, AQUAFUNC ((EU-SSA-022685), with financial support from the Commission of the European Communities. The work conducted by the authors was supported by the European Commission, The Imaquanim (Proposal No. 007103), Aquafirst (Proposal No. 513692), and UK BBSRC project EGA 17675 (salmon TRAITS).