Fish and Shellfish Immunology rapidly publishes high-quality, peer-refereed contributions in the expanding fields of fish and shellfish immunology. It presents studies on the basic mechanisms of both the specific and non-specific defense systems, the cells, tissues, and humoral factors involved, their dependence on environmental and intrinsic factors, response to pathogens, response to vaccination, and applied studies on the development of specific vaccines for use in the aquaculture industry.

The journal "Fish and Shellfish Immunology" rapidly publishes high-quality, peer-reviewed contributions in the expanding fields of fish and shellfish immunology. It presents studies on the basic mechanisms of both specific and non-specific defense systems, the cells, tissues, and humoral factors involved, their dependence on environmental and intrinsic factors, responses to pathogens, responses to vaccination, and applied studies on the development of specific vaccines for use in the aquaculture industry.

《Fish and Shellfish Immunology》期刊快速发表高质量、经过同行评审的研究成果，涵盖鱼类和贝类免疫学的广泛领域。期刊内容包括对特异性和非特异性防御系统基本机制的研究，涉及相关细胞、组织和体液因子，以及它们对环境和内在因素的依赖性、对病原体的反应、对疫苗的反应，以及针对水产养殖行业特定疫苗开发的应用研究。

Fish and Shellfish Immunology

As an essential micronutrient, copper is crucial in aquatic organisms' growth and development. Numerous studies have consistently reported that excessive intake of copper can have harmful effects on organisms. However, there are limited studies on the impact of copper on the intestine of the swamp eel (Monopterus albus). This study aimed to investigate the changes of intestinal histopathology, tight junction complex, immune response, and microbiota in swamp eel treated with 0 mg/L Cu2+, 0.05 mg/L Cu2+, and 0.10 mg/L Cu2+ for 56 d. Intestinal histopathology showed major changes such as the increased number of erythrocytes and goblet cells in the lamina propria, and separation of the lamina propria. The expression of genes involved in tight junction complex (ZO-1, Claudin-3, Claudin-12 and Claudin-15) was significantly changed. In addition, copper exposure significantly increased the mRNA levels of TLR3, TLR7, TLR8, NF-κB, I-κB, TNF-α and IL-8, especially in 0.10 mg/L Cu2+ group. In contrast, the relative expression level of anti-inflammatory cytokine TGF-β was significantly decreased after exposure to copper. Analysis of the intestinal microbiome showed the intestinal microbiota of swamp eels in the control and copper exposure groups were dominated by Firmicutes and Proteobacteria at the phylum level. Notably, copper exposure changed the diversity of the intestinal microbiota and decreased the relative abundance of Firmicutes and Proteobacteria in the intestine of swamp eel. Collectively, this study demonstrates that chronic copper exposure induces intestinal pathologic changes and inflammatory response, disrupts the intestinal microbial diversity and microbiota composition, and decreases intestinal barrier function in swamp eel, which enhances our understanding of copper-induced intestinal toxicity in fish.

Changgao Lin

Jianping Fu

Lin Liu

Hui Wang

Lili Wei

Fish & shellfish immunology

Fish Shellfish Immunol

Disruption of intestinal structure, tight junction complex, immune response and microbiota after chronic exposure to copper in swamp eel (Monopterus albus).

Largemouth bass ranavirus (LMBRaV), also known as largemouth bass virus (LMBV), is a highly damaging viral pathogen that causes widespread mortality in cultured largemouth bass and poses a significant threat to the farming industry in China. However, there is a paucity of effective preventive methods for this disease by LMBRaV. Research has established that herbal extracts possess antiviral activity, potentially exerting a controlling effect on viruses in aquaculture. Therefore, the identification of simple and structurally safe herbal extract immunomodulators is critical for largemouth bass health and development. Rhein, an herbal compound, exhibits a broad spectrum of pharmacological effects in herbal medicine. This study aimed to evaluate the properties and effects of rhein against LMBRaV in epithelioma papilloma cyprinid (EPC) and largemouth bass. In vitro CCK-8 assays were performed to determine the highest safe concentrations. Significantly, 50 mg/L rhein effectively inhibited cytopathic effects (CPE) in EPC induced by LMBRaV, resulting in a 97 % reduction in viral replication rates. Furthermore, a six-point dose-response experiment revealed that rhein doses as low as 6.4 mg/L inhibited LMBRaV and suppressed LMBRaV infection with a dose-dependent manner. Subsequent experiments demonstrated that sustained rhein activity effectively alleviated CPE and nuclear damage caused by LMBRaV infection. Additionally, rhein exerted protective effects against declines in LMBRaV-induced mitochondrial membrane potential. In vivo experiments validated that largemouth bass diets supplemented with 0.075 % rhein exerted a protective effect against LMBRaV infection. Moreover, LMBRaV MCP gene expression levels were lower in several organs of fish in the rhein supplementation group. Immunogene analysis determined that rhein upregulated relevant gene expression levels in multiple organs of largemouth bass, with higher activities observed for the Mx, INF-γ, and IRF3 genes. Histopathological results displayed that a supplemental dosage of 0.075 % rhein significantly mitigated LMBRaV infection-induced pathological damage in the liver, spleen, and kidney. Taken together, these in vivo and in vitro results support the effective use of rhein as a promising candidate for the development of antiviral treatment against LMBRaV infection, highlighting its role in aquatic animal husbandry as a wide-spectrum antiviral and immune response booster.

Mengmeng Chen

Mingyang Xue

Yong Zhou

Chen Xu

Nan Jiang

Yuding Fan

Yan Meng

Fish & Shellfish Immunology

Antiviral effects of rhein on largemouth bass ranavirus (LMBRaV)

大黄素对大口黑鲈蛙病毒（LMBRaV）的抗病毒作用

The S100 family proteins are a group of small acidic polypeptides and have diverse functions in regulating many aspects of physiological processes. They are structurally conserved and possess two EF-hands which are central for calcium-mediated functions. In this study, 14 S100 cDNA sequences were determined in zebrafish and their genomic organizations confirmed. Re-analyzing the gene synteny of the S100 loci identified two major S100 loci in Chr16 and Chr19 which share remarkable conservation with the S100 locus in human Chr1, suggesting they may have evolved from a single locus during the teleost specific whole genome duplication event. It appears that the homologues of human S100G and S100P have been lost in zebrafish. Expression analysis reveals that S100W, ICN1 and ICN2 are markedly expressed in embryos. Further, the transcripts of S100 genes are relatively abundant in mucosal tissues such as gills and gut. Intraperitoneal injection of poly(I:C) resulted in up-regulation of most S100 genes in the gut and spleen, with highest induction of S100V2 and S100Z detected. In fish challenged with spring viremia of carp virus (SVCV), expression of most S100 family genes was increased in the spleen between day 1 and 7 post infection, with consistent induction seen for the S100A1, S100A10b, S100B, S100ICN1, S100T, S100U, S100V1 and S100Z. Interestingly, intraperitoneal injection of Edwardsiella tarda down-regulated S100 expression in the gut but resulted in induction in the spleen. The results demonstrate that the S100 family genes are differentially modulated by bacterial and viral pathogens in zebrafish.

Chang Zhang

Qin Zhang

Junya Wang

Jiayin Tian

Yunjie Song

Haixia Xie

Mingxian Chang

Pin Nie

Qian Gao

Jun Zou

Transcriptomic responses of S100 family to bacterial and viral infection in zebrafish.

S100家族在斑马鱼细菌和病毒感染中的转录组反应。

Supplementing the diet with functional ingredients is a key strategy to improve fish performance and health in aquaculture. The amino acids of the urea and nitric oxide (NO) cycles - arginine, ornithine and citrulline - perform crucial roles in the immune response through the generation of NO and the synthesis of polyamine used for tissue repair. We previously found that citrulline supplementation improves and maintains circulating free arginine levels in rainbow trout more effectively than arginine supplementation. Here, to test whether supplementation of urea cycle amino acids modulates the immune response in rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss), we supplemented a commercial diet with high levels (2% of total diet) of either arginine, ornithine or citrulline during a 7-week feeding trial, before challenging fish with the bacterium Aeromonas salmonicida. We carried out two separate experiments to investigate fish survival and 24 h post-infection to investigate the immediate response of free amino acid levels, and transcriptional changes in genes encoding urea cycle, NO cycle and polyamine synthesis enzymes. There were no differences in percentage fish mortality between diets, however there were numerous highly significant changes in free amino acid levels and gene expression to both dietary supplementation and infection. Out of 26 amino acids detected in blood plasma, 8 were significantly changed by infection and 9 by dietary supplementation of either arginine, ornithine or citrulline. Taurine, glycine and aspartic acid displayed the largest decreases in circulating levels in infected fish, while ornithine and isoleucine were the only amino acids that increased in concentration. We investigated transcriptional responses of the enzymes involved in arginine metabolism in liver and head kidney; transcripts for polyamine synthesis enzymes showed highly significant increases in both tissues across all diets following infection. The paralogous arginase-encoding genes, Arg1a, Arg1b, Arg2a and Arg2b, displayed complex responses across tissues and also due to diet and infection. Overall, these findings improve our understanding of amino acid metabolism following infection and suggests new potential amino acid targets for improving the immune response in salmonids.

T C Clark

J Tinsley

T Sigholt

D J Macqueen

S A M Martin

Arginine, ornithine and citrulline supplementation in rainbow trout: Free amino acid dynamics and gene expression responses to bacterial infection.

彩虹鲑鱼中精氨酸、鸟氨酸和瓜氨酸的补充：自由氨基酸动态及对细菌感染的基因表达响应。

Streptococcosis is a highly contagious aquatic bacterial disease that poses a significant threat to tilapia. Vaccination is a well-known effective measure to prevent and control fish bacterial diseases. Among the various immunization methods, immersion vaccination is simple and can be widely used in aquaculture. Besides, nanocarrier delivery technology has been reported as an effective solution to improve the immune effect of immersion vaccine. In this study, the surface immunogenic protein (Sip) was proved to be conserved and potential to provide cross-immunoprotection for both Streptococcus agalactiae (S. agalactiae) and Streptococcus iniae (S. iniae) by multiple sequences alignment and Western blotting analysis. On this basis, we expressed and obtained the recombinant protein rSip and connected it with functionalized carbon nanotubes (CNT) to construct the nanocarrier vaccine system CNT-rSip. After immersion immunization, the immune effect of CNT-rSip against above two streptococcus infections was evaluated in tilapia based on some aspects including the serum specific antibody level, non-specific enzyme activities, immune-related genes expression and relative percent survival (RPS) after bacteria challenge. The results showed that compared with control group, CNT-rSip significantly (P < 0.05) increased the serum antibody levels, related enzyme activities including acid phosphatase, alkaline phosphatase, lysozyme and total antioxidant capacity activities, as well as the expression levels of immune-related genes from 2 to 4 weeks post immunization (wpi), and all these indexes peaked at 3 wpi. Besides, the above indexes of CNT-rSip were higher than those of rSip group with different extend during the experiment. Furthermore, the challenge test indicated that CNT-rSip provided cross-immunoprotection against S. agalactiae and S. iniae infection with RPS of 75 % and 72.41 %, respectively, which were much higher than those of other groups. Our study indicated that the nanocarrier immersion vaccine CNT-rSip could significantly improve the antibody titer and confer cross-immuneprotection against S. agalactiae and S. iniae infection in tilapia.

Ye Cao

Jia Liu

Gaoyang Liu

Hui Du

Tianqiang Liu

Tao Liu

Pengfei Li

Qing Yu

Gaoxue Wang

Erlong Wang

A nanocarrier immersion vaccine encoding surface immunogenic protein confers cross-immunoprotection against Streptococcus agalactiae and Streptococcus iniae infection in tilapia.

纳米载体浸润疫苗编码表面免疫原性蛋白赋予罗非鱼对无乳链球菌和海豚链球菌感染的交叉免疫保护。

Arthika Kalaichelvan

Kishanthini Nadarajapillai

Sarithaa Sellaththurai

U.P.E. Arachchi

Myoung-Jin Kim

Sumi Jung

Jehee Lee

CRISPR/Cas9-induced knockout of tumor necrosis factor-alpha-type I augments viral infection in zebrafish

CRISPR/Cas9诱导的肿瘤坏死因子-αI型敲除增强了斑马鱼中的病毒感染

Xirui Si

Xinglu Chen

Baoying Guo

Zhi Liao

Xiaojun Yan

Pengzhi Qi

The role of methyltransferase-like 3 (METTL3) in immune response modulation in bivalve (Mytilus coruscus) during bacterial infection.

甲基转移酶样3（METTL3）在细菌感染期间对双壳类（翡翠贻贝）免疫反应调节中的作用。

Proteinogram is a semiquantitative method specially used in clinic to separate the serum proteins from patients for use in the diagnosis of diseases. However, this methodology has only been applied very recently with this approach in farmed fish. Thus, the aim of this study was to explore the changes in the serum proteinogram of gilthead seabream (Sparus aurata), after triggering an acute or chronic sterile inflammation. For this, two experiments were carried out: i) Acute inflammation experiment: seabream specimens were injected intramuscularly with 50 μL of λ-carrageenan (0.5 mg fish-1) or buffer (control) and blood samples were collected at 3, 6 and 24 h post-injection; ii) Chronic inflammation experiment: specimens were injected at 0, 7 and 14 days with 500, 250 and 250 μL of λ-carrageenan, respectively (20 mg fish-1) or buffer, and blood samples were collected at 15 days post-injection. In both cases, serum was obtained and processed by electropherograms and HPLC-mass spectrometry. Results of electropherograms of control fish revealed four major proteins of 19.5, 76.3, 104.4, and 156.7 kDa in the serum. These four proteins were correlated with apolipoprotein A-II (II (the counterpart of mammalian albumin, Apo fraction), serotransferrin (β fraction), inter-α-trypsin inhibitor heavy chain H3-like (α1 fraction) and α-2-macroglobulin-like (α2 fraction) according to the results obtained with HPLC-mass spectrometry. In a statistical view (p<0.05), no variations were detected in the four major serum protein bands between the control and the acutely inflamed groups. However, in chronically inflamed fish, the Apo fraction decreased statistically compared to the control group. In contrast, the α1 and α2 fractions were statistically increased in the serum of fish sampled 15 days after λ-carrageenan injection, compared to those found in the control fish. α1 and α2 protein fractions are recognized indicators of inflammation in mammals. Consequently, our study presents a novel method for assessing both acute and chronic λ-carrageenan-induced sterile inflammation in gilthead seabream, which could be applicable to other marine species for diagnostic purposes.

Jose Carlos Campos-Sánchez

María Ángeles Esteban

Francisco A Guardiola

Evaluating serum proteinogram methodologies for the diagnosis of inflammation in fish: Acute and chronic patterns in gilthead seabream (Sparus aurata) injected with λ-carrageenan

评估鱼类炎症诊断中血清蛋白图谱方法：注射λ-卡拉胶的欧洲鲈鱼（Sparus aurata）中的急性和慢性模式

Gills are the main respiratory organs of fish and bear important physiological and immunological functions, but the functional heterogeneity of interlamellar cell mass (ILCM) at the single-cell level has rarely been reported. Here, we identified 19 cell types from the gills of crucian carp (Carassius auratus) by single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) in combination with histological analysis. We annotated ILCM and analyzed its functional heterogeneity at the single-cell level for the first time. Functional enrichment analysis and cell cycle analysis identified ILCM as a type of metabolically active cells in a state of constant proliferation, and identified the major pathways responsible for ILCM immunoregulation. Histological analysis revealed the morphology and positional relationships of 6 cell types. Meanwhile, the gene regulatory network of ILCM was established through weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA), and one transcription factor and five hub genes related to immunoregulation were identified. We found that pyroptosis might be an important pathway responsible for the immune response of ILCM. Our findings provide an insight into the physiological and immune functions of gills and ILCM at the single-cell level and lay a solid foundation for further exploration of the molecular mechanism of ILCM immunity functions.

Zhi-Guang Hou

Meng-Chao Xing

Jia-Xing Luo

Yi-Huan Xu

Li-Han Zhang

Xiao-Wei Gao

Jiang-Jiang Wang

Fazhan Hanafiah

Waiho Khor

Xin Hao

Xin Zhao

Cheng-Bin Wu

Single-cell transcriptome sequencing analysis of physiological and immune profiling of crucian carp (Carassius auratus) gills

鲫鱼（Carassius auratus）鳃的生理与免疫特征的单细胞转录组测序分析

El-Sayed Hemdan Eissa

Basma M Hendam

Hagar Sedeek Dighiesh

Heba E Abd Elnabi

Salah El-Sayed Sakr

Hoda Kabary

Afaf N Abdel Rahman

Moaheda E H Eissa

Norhan H Ahmed

Corrigendum to “The benefits of astaxanthin-rich microalgal powder on growth, health, and disease resistance against Fusarium solani in Pacific white shrimp” [Fish Shellfish Immunol. 156 (2025) 110059]

《对“富含虾青素的微藻粉对太平洋白虾生长、健康及对镰刀菌抗病性的益处”一文的勘误》[《鱼类与贝类免疫学》156卷 (2025年) 110059页]

Abbreviation	Fish Shellfish. Immunol.
Journal Impact	4.04
Quartiles(Global)	VETERINARY SCIENCES(Q1)

ISSN	1050-4648, 1095-9947
h-index	152
Top Journals	Yes

Publication Information	Publisher: Academic Press，Publishing cycle: Monthly，Journal Type: journal，Open Access Journals: No
Basic data	Year of publication: 1991，Proportion of original research papers: 99.44%，Self Citation Rate:17.10%， Gold OA Rate: 7.24%
Average review cycle	网友分享经验：平均3.0个月
Average recruitment ratio	网友分享经验：约95%

Fish and Shellfish Immunology

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