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Host genetic variation explains reduced protection of commercial vaccines against Piscirickettsia salmonis in Atlantic salmon.

ABSTRACT: Vaccination is a widely used control strategy to prevent Piscirickettsia salmonis causing disease in salmon farming. However, it is not known why all the currently available commercial vaccines generally fail to protect against this pathogenic bacteria. Here, we report, from two different populations, that between-family variation is a strong intrinsic factor that determines vaccine protection for this disease. While in some full-sib families, the protection added by vaccination increased the survival time in 13 days in comparison with their unvaccinated siblings; in other families, there was no added protection by vaccination or even it was slightly negative. Resistance to P. salmonis, measured as days to death, was higher in vaccinated than unvaccinated fish, but only a moderate positive genetic correlation was obtained between these traits. This disputes a previous hypothesis, that stated that both traits were fully controlled by the same genes, and challenges the use of unvaccinated fish as gold standard for evaluating and selecting fish resistant to P. salmonis, particularly if the offspring will be vaccinated. More studies are necessary to evaluate if variation in the host immune response to vaccination could explain the between-family differences in resistance observed in vaccinated fish.

SUBMITTER: Figueroa C

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7588420 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Host genetic variation explains reduced protection of commercial vaccines against Piscirickettsia salmonis in Atlantic salmon.

Figueroa Carolina C Veloso Pamela P Espin Lenin L Dixon Brian B Torrealba Débora D Elalfy Islam Said IS Afonso Juan Manuel JM Soto Carlos C Conejeros Pablo P Gallardo José A JA

Scientific reports 20201026 1

Vaccination is a widely used control strategy to prevent Piscirickettsia salmonis causing disease in salmon farming. However, it is not known why all the currently available commercial vaccines generally fail to protect against this pathogenic bacteria. Here, we report, from two different populations, that between-family variation is a strong intrinsic factor that determines vaccine protection for this disease. While in some full-sib families, the protection added by vaccination increased the su ...[more]

PMID: 33106499

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Project description:Simple Summary Vaccination represents one of the most relevant strategies to prevent and control infectious diseases in aquaculture. However, vaccines have failed to control and prevent Piscirickettsia salmonis, a bacterium that causes large economic losses to the industry. Therefore, we evaluated the performance of two commercial vaccines in Atlantic salmon through a cohabitation challenge (healthy fish were challenged by cohabitation with infected fish) of the two most prevalent and ubiquitous Piscirickettsia genetic variants in Chile. We found no evidence that vaccines confer protection against the LF-89 or EM-90 genogroups in Atlantic salmon. Abstract In Atlantic salmon, vaccines have failed to control and prevent Piscirickettsiosis, for reasons that remain elusive. In this study, we report the efficacy of two commercial vaccines developed with the Piscirickettsia salmonis isolates AL100005 and AL 20542 against another two genogroups which are considered highly and ubiquitously prevalent in Chile: LF-89 and EM-90. Two cohabitation trials were performed to mimic field conditions and vaccine performance: (1) post-smolt fish were challenged with a single infection of LF-89, (2) adults were coinfected with EM-90, and a low level coinfection of sea lice. In the first trial, the vaccine delayed smolt mortalities by two days; however, unvaccinated and vaccinated fish did not show significant differences in survival (unvaccinated: 60.3%, vaccinated: 56.7%; p = 0.28). In the second trial, mortality started three days later for vaccinated fish than unvaccinated fish. However, unvaccinated and vaccinated fish did not show significant differences in survival (unvaccinated: 64.6%, vaccinated: 60.2%, p = 0.58). Thus, we found no evidence that the evaluated vaccines confer effective protection against the genogroups LF-89 and EM-90 of P. salmonis with estimated relative survival proportions (RPSs) of −9% and −12%, respectively. More studies are necessary to evaluate whether pathogen heterogeneity is a key determinant of the lack of vaccine efficacy against P. salmonis.

Project description:The aquaculture industry has confronted severe economic losses due to infectious diseases in the last years. Piscirickettsiosis or Salmonid Rickettsial Septicaemia (SRS) is the bacterial disease caused by Piscirickettsia salmonis. This Gram-negative, non-motile, cellular pathogen has the ability to infect, survive, replicate, and propagate in salmonid monocytes/macrophages generating a systemic infection characterized by the colonization of several organs including kidney, liver, spleen, intestine, brain, ovary and gills. In this study, we attempted to determine whether global gene expression differences can be detected in different genetic groups of Atlantic salmon as a result of Piscirickettsia salmonis infection. Moreover, we sought to characterize the fish transcriptional response in order to reveal the mechanisms that might confer resistance in Atlantic salmon to an infection with Piscirickettsia salmonis. In doing so, after challenging with Piscirickettsia salmonis, we selected the families with the highest (HS) and the lowest (LS) recorded susceptibility for gene expression analysis using 32K cGRASP microarrays. Our results revealed in LS families expression changes are linked to iron depletion, as well as, low contents of iron in kidney cells and low bacterial load, indicated that the iron-withholding strategy of innate immunity is part of the mechanism of resistance against Piscirickettsia salmonis. This information contributes to elucidate the underlying mechanisms of resistance to Piscirickettsia salmonis infection in Atlantic salmon and to identify new candidate genes for selective breeding programmes. Forty full-sibling families of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) were infected by intraperitoneal injection with 0.2 mL Piscirickettsia salmonis (PS889, isolated from Oncorhynchus kisutch, 1M-CM-^W104 PFU/mL). After forty days, the fishes were harvested and the cumulative mortality (dead fish / total fish) for each family was calculated. For the second challenge, the six families with the highest cumulative mortality levels were considered of relatively high susceptibility (HS) and the six families with the lowest cumulative mortality levels were considered of relatively low susceptibility (LS) to the infection. Five control and five infected fish from three HS and three LS families were analyzed. For each HS and LS family, pools of RNA from control and infected fish were prepared separately and were reverse transcribed. Four slides were for each used family hybridized including two dye-swaped slides. Labeled samples were hybridized on a 32K cDNA microarray, developed at the Consortium for Genomics Research on All Salmonids Project (cGRASP), GEO accession number: GPL8904.

Project description:Piscirickettsia salmonis, an aggressive intracellular pathogen, is the etiological agent of salmonid rickettsial septicemia (SRS). This is a chronic multisystemic disease that generates high mortalities and large losses in Chilean salmon farming, threatening the sustainability of the salmon industry. Previous reports suggest that P. salmonis is able to survive and replicate in salmonid macrophages, inducing an anti-inflammatory environment and a limited lysosomal response that may be associated with host immune evasion mechanisms favoring bacterial survival. Current control and prophylaxis strategies against P. salmonis (based on the use of antibiotics and vaccines) have not had the expected success against infection. This makes it urgent to unravel the host-pathogen interaction to develop more effective therapeutic strategies. In this study, we evaluated the effect of treatment with IgM-beads on lysosomal activity in Atlantic salmon macrophage-enriched cell cultures infected with P. salmonis by analyzing the lysosomal pH and proteolytic ability through confocal microscopy. The impact of IgM-beads on cytotoxicity induced by P. salmonis in infected cells was evaluated by quantification of cell lysis through release of Lactate Dehydrogenase (LDH) activity. Bacterial load was determined by quantification of 16S rDNA copy number by qPCR, and counting of colony-forming units (CFU) present in the extracellular and intracellular environment. Our results suggest that stimulation with antibodies promotes lysosomal activity by lowering lysosomal pH and increasing the proteolytic activity within this organelle. Additionally, incubation with IgM-beads elicits a decrease in bacterial-induced cytotoxicity in infected Atlantic salmon macrophages and reduces the bacterial load. Overall, our results suggest that stimulation of cells infected by P. salmonis with IgM-beads reverses the modulation of the lysosomal activity induced by bacterial infection, promoting macrophage survival and bacterial elimination. This work represents a new important evidence to understand the bacterial evasion mechanisms established by P. salmonis and contribute to the development of new effective therapeutic strategies against SRS.

Project description:BackgroundVertebrate hosts limit the availability of iron to microbial pathogens in order to nutritionally starve the invaders. The impact of iron deficiency induced by the iron chelator deferoxamine mesylate (DFO) was investigated in Atlantic salmon SHK-1 cells infected with the facultative intracellular bacterium Piscirickettsia salmonis.ResultsEffects of the DFO treatment and P. salmonis on SHK-1 cells were gaged by assessing cytopathic effects, bacterial load and activity, and gene expression profiles of eight immune biomarkers at 4- and 7-days post infection (dpi) in the control group, groups receiving single treatments (DFO or P. salmonis) and their combination. The chelator appears to be well-tolerated by host cells, while it had a negative impact on the number of bacterial cells and associated cytotoxicity. DFO alone had minor effects on gene expression of SHK-1 cells, including an early activation of IL-1β at 4 dpi. In contrast to few moderate changes induced by single treatments (either infection or chelator), most genes had highest upregulation in the infected groups receiving DFO. The mildest induction of hepcidin-1 (antimicrobial peptide precursor and regulator of iron homeostasis) was observed in cells exposed to DFO alone, followed by P. salmonis infected cells while the addition of DFO to infected cells further increased the mRNA abundance of this gene. Transcripts encoding TNF-α (immune signaling) and iNOS (immune effector) showed sustained increase at both time points in this group while cathelicidin-1 (immune effector) and IL-8 (immune signaling) were upregulated at 7 dpi. The stimulation of protective gene responses seen in infected cultures supplemented with DFO coincided with the reduction of bacterial load and activity (judged by the expression of P. salmonis 16S rRNA), and damage to cultured host cells.ConclusionThe absence of immune gene activation under normal iron conditions suggests modulation of host responses by P. salmonis. The negative effect of iron deficiency on bacteria likely allowed host cells to respond in a more protective manner to the infection, further decreasing its progression. Presented findings encourage in vivo exploration of iron chelators as a promising strategy against piscirickettsiosis.

Dataset Information

Host genetic variation explains reduced protection of commercial vaccines against Piscirickettsia salmonis in Atlantic salmon.

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Host genetic variation explains reduced protection of commercial vaccines against Piscirickettsia salmonis in Atlantic salmon.

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