Development of a non lethal sampling method to monitor immune response and disease progression in salmonid fish.

开发一种非致命采样方法来监测鲑鱼的免疫反应和疾病进展。

• 批准号: G1100675/1
• 负责人: Bertrand Collet
• 金额: $ 55.51万
• 依托单位: Marine Scotland
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2011 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=G1100675%2F1
• 关键词: Development; non; lethal; sampling; method

Fish farming in the UK and around the world faces serious economical threats from viruses and bacteria causing outbreaks and loss of valuable livestock. Vaccines and immunostimulants are often administered to fish to prevent these outbreaks. Continuous research is required to verify whether new products are effective. In order to do so, research worldwide is routinely carried out whereby large groups of animals are experimentally infected with a pathogen. The level of mortalities in groups of fish treated with such substances are then compared with a group of untreated fish. Other researchers have focused on understanding how the fish immune system works and how it combats invasion by bacteria and viruses. For this, experiments are undertaken whereby a group of fish is experimentally infected with viral or bacterial pathogens, then at regular intervals, at least 5 fish are killed and analysed. Both methods are very costly in terms of the number of animals used, and we propose to reduce this from the work carried out during this 2 year project. Instead of killing fish at regular intervals, we propose to take small volumes of blood repeatedly during the course of the infection without harming the fish. The number of animals required for this experiment design represents only 20 % of the number of fish required using traditional sampling methods. In addition, following the same fish during the course of the infection will allow a better understanding of the immune response elicited by the fish, and the outcome of this response i.e. death or survival. Part of the project will be dedicated to improving the analysis method. Because only a small volume of blood is repeatedly sampled over the course of the infection, novel methods are required to measure and describe the immune response. Some of the tools to be includes are antibodies, specifically recognise individual immune molecules, information on fish immune genes and the existence of immortal fish cells that can be cultivated in vitro. These methods will be adapted for use with the small volumes of blood collected and will be used to understand which blood cells, and serum molecules are important in combating the pathogen. The relation between the cell types, the molecules involved, the type of pathogen and the final outcome of the infection will be very important in predicting the severity of infection, determining the appropriate immunostimulant to be used and improving existing fish vaccines.

英国及世界各地的养鱼面临严重的经济威胁，导致爆发和损失有价值的牲畜。疫苗和免疫刺激剂通常被施用以防止这些暴发。需要持续研究以验证新产品是否有效。为了做到这一点，全世界的研究经常进行，使大量动物在实验中感染了病原体。然后将用这种物质处理的鱼类的死亡水平与一组未经处理的鱼进行比较。其他研究人员专注于了解鱼类免疫系统的工作原理以及它如何与细菌和病毒的侵袭作斗争。为此，进行了实验，从而在实验中用病毒或细菌病原体感染一组鱼，然后定期进行，至少杀死和分析5条鱼。就使用的动物数量而言，这两种方法都非常昂贵，我们建议将其与这项两年项目中所做的工作减少。我们建议不要在感染过程中反复杀死小鱼，而不会损害鱼类。该实验设计所需的动物数量仅占使用传统抽样方法所需的鱼类数量的20％。此外，在感染过程中，遵循同一条鱼类将可以更好地理解鱼类引起的免疫反应，以及这种反应的结果，即死亡或生存。该项目的一部分将致力于改进分析方法。由于在感染过程中只能反复采样一小卷的血液，因此需要采用新的方法来测量和描述免疫反应。其中的一些工具包括抗体，特别识别单个免疫分子，有关鱼类免疫基因的信息以及可以在体外培养的不朽鱼类细胞的存在。这些方法将适用于收集的少量血液，并用于了解哪些血细胞，并且血清分子对于对抗病原体很重要。细胞类型，所涉及的分子，病原体的类型和感染的最终结果之间的关系对于预测感染的严重程度非常重要，确定要使用的适当免疫刺激剂并改善现有的鱼类疫苗。