title: Akirins in sea lice: first steps towards a deeper understanding.
abstract: Sea lice (Copepoda, Caligidae) are the most widely distributed marine pathogens in the salmon industry. Vaccination could be an environmentally friendly alternative for sea lice control; however, research on the development of such vaccines is still at an early stage of development. Recent results have suggested that subolesin/akirin/my32 are good candidate antigens for the control of arthropod infestations, including sea lice, but background knowledge about these genes in crustaceans is limited. Herein, we characterize the my32 gene/protein from two important sea lice species, Caligus rogercresseyi and Lepeophtheirus salmonis, based on cDNA sequence isolation, phylogenetic relationships, three dimensional structure prediction and expression analysis. The results show that these genes/proteins have the main characteristics of akirins from invertebrates. In addition, immunization with purified recombinant my32 from L. salmonis elicited a specific antibody response in mice and fish. These results provide an improvement to our current knowledge about my32 proteins and their potential use as vaccine candidates against sea lice in fish.
authors.affiliation: Animal Biotechnology Division, Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, Havana, Cuba.
authors.forename: Yamila
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Carpio
authors.forename: Claudia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: García
authors.forename: Tirso
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Pons
authors.forename: Denise
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Haussmann
authors.forename: Tania
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Rodríguez-Ramos
authors.forename: Liliana
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Basabe
authors.forename: Jannel
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Acosta
authors.forename: Mario Pablo
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: Estrada
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D000917:Antibody Formation; D000941:Antigens / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology*; D017756:Aquaculture; D001483:Base Sequence; D002677:Chile; D003001:Cloning, Molecular; D033342:Copepoda / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology*; D018076:DNA, Complementary / Q000737:chemistry; D005260:Female; D005393:Fish Diseases / Q000469:parasitology / Q000517:prevention & control*; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009664:Norway; D010802:Phylogeny; D011487:Protein Conformation; D012313:RNA / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification; D020317:Salmo salar / Q000469:parasitology*; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D017210:Tilapia; D014612:Vaccines
chemical_list: D000941:Antigens; D018076:DNA, Complementary; D014612:Vaccines; D012313:RNA
keywords: Akirin; Caligus rogercresseyi; Lepeophtheirus salmonis; Sea lice; my32