DEEP WORK

1. IntroductionMost infections start at or affect the mucosal epithelia of animals. Mucosal surfaces face many antigens while living in harmony with commensal microorganisms, known conjunctionally as microbiota. Over the last few years, the literature has been filled with many studies on how the microbiota shapes the host and its immune system [1e3].  Commensal colonization brings many physiolog..

1. IntroductionIn the last decades mucosal immunology of more evolved vertebrates is a strongly explored field of research. Although a well functioning mucosal immune system in fish would be very beneficial to live in a pathogen rich aquatic environment, not many details are known about this system in this group of animals. This review will summarize the data known about the intestinal immune sy..

INTRODUCTIONIt is instructive to categorize various tissue compartments involved in mucosal immunity according to their main function. However, until recently, there was no consensus in the scientific community as to how these compartments should be named and classified. This lack of standardized terminology has been particularly confusing for newcomers to the mucosal immunology field. To addres..

1. IntroductionHigher metazoans have different barriers that separate themselves from the surrounding environment. Whereas some animal species evolved non-mucosal barriers (i.e. the cuticle of arthropods), others, such as teleost fish, developed mucosal surfaces as their strategy to protect themselves from the aggressions of the environment. In addition to being physical barriers, mucosal surfac..

1. IntroductionThe thymus is considered a key organ of the immune system in vertebrates. It is a unique vertebrate organ whose development can be traced through the evolutionary scale beginning in early fish species as a thickening in the epithelium of the pharyngeal area of the gastro-intestinal tract. The thymus is responsible for production of self-restricted and self-tolerant T-cells [1]. In..

INTRODUCTIONTHE INNATE AND ACQUIRE IMMUNE SYSTEM OF BONY FISHThe immune system is a set of cellular and humoral components to defend the body against foreign substances, such as microorganisms, toxins or malignant cells, responding to factors such as endogenous or exogenous components that stimulate this system. The fish immune system is divided into innate and adaptive (memory), both divided in..

Fish immune system—an overview Like mammals, the fish immune system is built with two components, i.e., non-specifc, or innate immunity, and specifc or adaptive immunity. The nonspecifc immune system in fish is the second line of defence, which responds non-specifcally against pathogens before the specifc immune system takes command of the defence mechanism (Firdaus-Nawi and Zamri-Saad 2016). Bo..

I. INTRODUCTIONThe immune system is dependent for its function on a complex set of regulatory interactions among many types of cells, including lymphocytes, monocytes, other types of leukocytes, and nonhemopoietic cells. These interactions are mediated both by cell-to-cell contact and by a variety of soluble factors, most notably a group of small regulatory proteins collectively known as cytokin..

It may seem strange to devote an entire colloquium to therapeutic vaccines for which there is no example other than, perhaps, that against rabies. However, therapeutic vaccinology remains a ‘‘Holy Grail’’ for future conquest of yet to be conquered diseases. There is a credible but uncertain basis for hope that effective therapeutic vaccines may be developed eventually, because the healthy immune..

MUCOSAL ADAPTIVE IMMUNITY The adaptive mucosal immune response of teleosts, which is postulated to have appeared early in the evolution of acquired immunity, plays an important role in protection against infection. Fishes are the earliest vertebrates to have both innate and adaptive immunity, and acquired immunity is postulated to have evolved earliest in the gut of jawed fishes (Matsunaga, 1998..