The oriental river prawn Macrobrachium nipponense is an economically important species that is widely farmed in China. White spot syndrome virus (WSSV) is one of the most devastating pathogens of the cultured shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei, responsible for massive loss of its commercial products worldwide. We investigated the infectivity and pathogenicity of WSSV in adult M. nipponense using standardized conditions for L. vannamei. The median lethal dose of WSSV in adult M. nipponense was 103.84±0.06 copies g-1, which was about 1000-fold higher than in L. vannamei (100.59±0.22 copies g-1). WSSV was detected by 2-step PCR in the gills, hepatopancreas, muscle, stomach, heart, gut, nerve, integument, pereopod, eyestalk, testis, and ovary of experimentally infected dead M. nipponense. Lesions were observed histologically following WSSV injection, showing basophilic intranuclear inclusion bodies in the hepatopancreas and subsequently in the gills. The clearance of WSSV was observed in hepatopancreas and gills at 48 and 96 h post-inoculation, respectively. No histological lesions were detected in muscle from 0-96 h post-injection. The results show that the oriental river prawn M. nipponense can be infected by WSSV and the infections are self limiting over time; therefore, M. nipponense may serve as a useful model for studying resistance to WSSV.
White spot syndrome virus (WSSV) is one of the most devastating pathogens of cultured shrimp, responsible for massive loss of its commercial products worldwide. The oriental river prawn Macrobrachium nipponense is an economically important species that is widely farmed in China and adult prawns can be infected by WSSV. However, the molecular mechanisms of the host pathogen interaction remain unknown. There is an urgent need to learn the host pathogen interaction between M. nipponense and WSSV which will be able to offer a solution in controlling the spread of WSSV. Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) was used in this study to determin the transcriptome differences by the comparison of control and WSSV-challenged moribund samples, control and WSSV-challenged survived samples of hepatopancreas in M. nipponense. A total of 64,049 predicted unigenes were obtained and classified into 63 functional groups. Approximately, 4,311 differential expression genes were identified with 3,308 genes were up-regulated when comparing the survived samples with the control. In the comparison of moribund samples with control, 1,960 differential expression genes were identified with 764 genes were up-regulated. In the contrast of two comparison libraries, 300 mutual DEGs with 95 up-regulated genes and 205 down-regulated genes. All the DEGs were performed GO and KEGG analysis, overall a total of 85 immune-related genes were obtained and these gene were groups into 13 functions and 4 KEGG pathways, such as protease inhibitors, heat shock proteins, oxidative stress, pathogen recognition immune receptors, PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway, MAPK signaling pathway and Ubiquitin Proteasome Pathway. Ten genes that valuable in immune responses against WSSV were selected from those DEGs to furture discuss the response of host to WSSV. Results from this study contribute to a better understanding of the immune response of M. nipponense to WSSV, provide information for identifying novel genes in the absence of genome of M. nipponense. Furthermore, large number of transcripts obtained from this study could provide a strong basis for future genomic research on M. nipponense.
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