Cell-mediated innate immunity in aquatic invertebrates and fish: what’s new?

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Background

Defense strategies of marine organisms (both invertebrates and vertebrates) have always been of particular interest because these species are constantly exposed to the various biotic (e.g., dense microbial communities and trophic conditions) and abiotic (e.g., light, temperature, and salinity variation) stresses of the aquatic habitat exerting selective pressures. Marine invertebrates possess a non-adaptive immune system, which consists of physical barriers as well as cell-mediated immune responses. Such an innate immune response is directed against a broad spectrum of invaders and occurs much faster than the adaptive one. Conversely, the innate arm in fish, in which the adaptive immunity first appeared, exerts an important interplay with the adaptive counterpart, relying not only on canonical cell types but also on adaptive immune cell subsets, which play unusual innate-like functions.

Finally, as the interest in the field of ecological immunology is rapidly growing, it is important to also consider the potential of environmental contaminants to affect and /or modulate the immune response.

The study of cell-mediated innate immunity in marine species has become increasingly interesting since the discovery of many similarities between the cells involved in innate responses in mammals and fish/invertebrate homologs. These species possess immune cells directly engaged in chemotaxis, adherence, and phagocytosis. Moreover, they produce soluble mediators that regulate inflammatory responses, have a fully functional complement system and possess a repertoire of inducible cytotoxic antimicrobial mechanisms that are extremely proficient at destroying invasive pathogens. The discovery of such considerable immunological diversity and memory-like processes even in invertebrates are exciting developments but caution against oversimplifying invertebrate/fish immune systems and the assays designed to measure them. In fact, despite the impressive advancement of functional immunology, the knowledge of mechanisms governing the cell-mediated immune response in invertebrates/fish is still poor, also in teleost which conserves almost all the sets of immune-related genes present in vertebrates.

The vertebrate innate immune system has been mostly studied in fish and only in a few key species. Further, collecting more data from the main fish lineages will contribute to uncovering novel aspects of the evolution of the innate immune response.

This Research Topic will be dedicated to an overview of the recent progress in the study of the innate cellular-mediated immune responses of marine invertebrates/fish including:

1. Identification of innate immune cells.
2. Anti-viral, anti-parasitic, and anti-microbial innate immune response.
3. Molecular regulation of innate cellular immune responses.
4. Signaling pathways of pathogen recognition receptors.
5. Relationship between innate immune cell differentiation state and specialized functions.
6. Mucosal innate immunity.
7. Immune cell activity (phagocytosis, degranulation, and cytotoxicity)
8. Memory of innate immune cells.
9. Environment and immune response regulation.

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  • Methods
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Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

  • Brief Research Report
  • Case Report
  • Clinical Trial
  • Editorial
  • General Commentary
  • Hypothesis and Theory
  • Methods
  • Mini Review
  • Opinion
  • Original Research
  • Perspective
  • Review
  • Study Protocol
  • Systematic Review
  • Technology and Code

Keywords: marine invertebrates, marine fish, innate immunity, immune memory, mucosal immunity, cellular-mediated immune responses, ecological immunity.

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