title: Spawning stress triggers WSSV replication in brooders via the activation of shrimp STAT.
abstract: In the early days of shrimp aquaculture, wild-captured brooders usually spawned repeatedly once every 2-4days. However, since the first outbreaks of white spot disease (WSD) nearly 20years ago, captured female brooders often died soon after a single spawning. Although these deaths were clearly attributable to WSD, it has always been unclear how spawning stress could lead to an outbreak of the disease. Using real-time qPCR, we show here that while replication of the white spot syndrome virus (WSSV; the causative agent of WSD) is triggered by spawning, there was no such increase in the levels of another shrimp DNA virus, IHHNV (infectious hypodermal and hematopoietic necrosis virus). We also show that levels of activated STAT are increased in brooders during and after spawning, which is important because shrimp STAT is known to transactivate the expression of the WSSV immediate early gene ie1. Lastly, we used dsRNA silencing experiment to show that both WSSV ie1 gene expression and WSSV genome copy number were reduced significantly after shrimp STAT was knocked-down. This is the first report to demonstrate in vivo that shrimp STAT is important for WSSV replication and that spawning stress increases activated STAT, which in turn triggers WSSV replication in WSSV-infected brooders.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Zoology, College of Life Science, National Taiwan University, Taipei 106, Taiwan, ROC.
authors.forename: Shin-Jen
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.forename: Hui-Lan
authors.initials: HL
authors.lastname: Hsia
authors.forename: Wang-Jing
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Jiun-Yan
authors.initials: JY
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: Kuan-Fu
authors.initials: KF
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Wei-Yu
authors.initials: WY
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Ying-Chun
authors.initials: YC
authors.lastname: Yeh
authors.forename: Yun-Tzu
authors.initials: YT
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: Chu-Fang
authors.initials: CF
authors.lastname: Lo
authors.forename: Guang-Hsiung
authors.initials: GH
authors.lastname: Kou
authors.forename: Han-Ching
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D060829:Arthropod Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D019223:Densovirinae / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology; D018628:Gene Dosage; D055785:Gene Knockdown Techniques; D017781:Genes, Immediate-Early; D033561:Penaeidae / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology* / Q000821:virology*; D050791:STAT Transcription Factors / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D013312:Stress, Physiological; D046848:White spot syndrome virus 1 / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D060829:Arthropod Proteins; D050791:STAT Transcription Factors