Seasonal immunoregulation in a naturally-occurring vertebrate.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Fishes show seasonal patterns of immunity, but such phenomena are imperfectly understood in vertebrates generally, even in humans and mice. As these seasonal patterns may link to infectious disease risk and individual condition, the nature of their control has real practical implications. Here we characterize seasonal dynamics in the expression of conserved vertebrate immunity genes in a naturally-occurring piscine model, the three-spined stickleback.

Results

We made genome-wide measurements (RNAseq) of whole-fish mRNA pools (n = 36) at the end of summer and winter in contrasting habitats (riverine and lacustrine) and focussed on common trends to filter habitat-specific from overarching temporal responses. We corroborated this analysis with targeted year-round who

SUBMITTER: Brown M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4870750 | biostudies-literature | 2016 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature