Latin American & Caribbean Aquaculture 2019

November 19 - 22, 2019

San Jose, Costa Rica

IDENTIFICATION OF TRANSFERRIN AS POTENTIAL VACCINE CANDIDATE AGAINST SEA LICE: A REVERSE VACCINOLOGY APPROACH

Antonio Casuso*1, 2 , Cristian Gallardo-Escárate
 
1Laboratory of Biotechnology and Aquatic Genomics, Interdisciplinary Center for Aquaculture Research (INCAR), Universidad de Concepción, P.O. Box160-C, Concepción, Chile.
2Doctorate Program in Management of Aquatic Living Resources, Universidad de Concepción, Concepción, Chile.
 

Transferrin is a  blood plasma protein and the main protein related to the  iron transport. This protein is an important component of nutritional immunity. Here,  the host reduces iron availability to avoid the uptake of these ions by the parasite.  During the interaction between the Atlantic salmon and Caligus rogercresseyi, an increasing  of  iron related-transcripts in both species has been described, suggesting a competition for this micronutrient. C. rogercresseyi is an ectoparasite pathogen known as sea lice and it transferrin isoforms has not been characterized .  The development of vaccine-based control strategies for sea lice control in salmonid aquaculture has been desired.  The aim of this study was to use a reverse vaccinology approach to identify the C. rogercresseyi transferrin isoforms and identified by in silico analysis linear epitopes.

We analyzed databases obtained by Illumina sequencing of the different stages of sea lice development. The contigs were compared against crustacean transferrin proteins database using NCBI and UniProt. Expression levels of different isoforms were evaluated by RNA-Seq and validated by RT-qPCR. In silico prediction tests of linear T and B epitopes were performed by the online software BepiPred and TEPITOPE, respectively.

As results,  only one transferrin isoform was identified in the sea lice , with two transferrin-like domains. Furthermore, these proteins were differently expressed among sea lice developmental stages. In addition, linear epitopes of B and T lymphocytes were identified. These results demonstrate the antigenic potential of the  transferrin of C. rogercresseyi . Further subsequent research will demonstrate the immunogenic action of transferrin through in vivo tests against sea lice in farmed salmons.

Acknowledgments: This study was funded by FONDAP grant #15110027 and CONICYT-PCHA/Doctorado Nacional (Grant 2018-21180084).

e -mail address: acasuso@udec.cl

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