The Antimicrobial Defense of the Pacific Oyster, Crassostrea gigas. How Diversity may Compensate for Scarcity in the Regulation of Resident/Pathogenic Microflora.

ABSTRACT: Healthy oysters are inhabited by abundant microbial communities that vary with environmental conditions and coexist with immunocompetent cells in the circulatory system. In Crassostrea gigas oysters, the antimicrobial response, which is believed to control pathogens and commensals, relies on potent oxygen-dependent reactions and on antimicrobial peptides/proteins (AMPs) produced at low concentrations by epithelial cells and/or circulating hemocytes. In non-diseased oysters, hemocytes express basal levels of defensins (Cg-Defs) and proline-rich peptides (Cg-Prps). When the bacterial load dramatically increases in oyster tissues, both AMP families are driven to sites of infection by major hemocyte movements, together with bactericidal permeability/increasing proteins (Cg-BPIs) and given form

SUBMITTER: Schmitt P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3390580 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature