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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Immunol.
Sec. Comparative Immunology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2024.1457745

The dynamic immune response of liver and spleen in leopard coral grouper (Plectropomus leopardus) to Vibrio harveyi infection based on transcriptome analysis

Provisionally accepted
Yang Liu Yang Liu 1Sheng Lu Sheng Lu 1Mengqi Guo Mengqi Guo 1Ziyuan Wang Ziyuan Wang 1Bowen Hu Bowen Hu 1Bo Zhou Bo Zhou 2Songlin Chen Songlin Chen 1*
  • 1 Yellow Sea Fisheries Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences (CAFS), Qingdao, China
  • 2 Wanning Linlan Aquaculture Co., LTD, Wanning, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Leopard coral grouper (Plectropomus leopardus) is one of the most important cultured fish in Pacific and Indian oceans. Vibrio harveyi is a serious pathogen causing serious skin ulceration and high mortality in P. leopardus. To gain more insight into the tissue-specific and dynamic immune regulation process of P. leopardus in response to V. harveyi infection, RNA-seq was used to examine the transcriptome profiles in spleen and liver at 0, 6, 12, 24, 48 and 72 h post-infection.The up-regulated differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were predominantly involved in the immune response in the spleen and liver at the early infection stage (6-12 h), and down-regulated DEGs were mainly involved in metabolic processes in the liver at the early and middle infection stage (6-48 h). Moreover, an overview of the immune response of P. leopardus against V. harveyi was exhibited including innate and adaptive immune related pathways. Afterwards, the results of WGCNA analysis in the spleen indicated that TAP2, IRF1, SOCS1 and CFLAR were the hub genes closely involved in immune regulation in the gene co-expression network. This study provides a global picture of V. harveyi-induced gene expression profiles of P. leopardus at the transcriptome level and uncovers a set of key immune pathways and genes closely linked to V. harveyi infection, which will lay a foundation for further study the immune regulation of bacterial diseases in P. leopardus.

    Keywords: Plectropomus leopardus, Vibrio harveyi, Transcriptome, Dynamic immune regulation, tissue-specific immune response

    Received: 15 Jul 2024; Accepted: 18 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Liu, Lu, Guo, Wang, Hu, Zhou and Chen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Songlin Chen, Yellow Sea Fisheries Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences (CAFS), Qingdao, China

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