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Antiviral genes in the Asian swamp eel Monopterus albus: comparison of tissue expression and inducible expression of six interferon regulatory factors

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Abstract

Interferon regulatory factors (IRFs) play a vital role in the innate and adaptive immune system. The Asian swamp eel (Monopterus albus) is one of the most economically important freshwater fishes in China. Immunological data on the species are scare. In the present study, the expression pattern of six types of interferon regulatory factor (IRF) was studied in the Asian swamp eel. Six IRFs except IRF4 were shown to be constitutively expressed in all tissues examined. Their transcription was significantly higher in lymphoid tissues, such as intestine, skin and spleen. Furthermore, IRF1 and IRF5 was also respectively expressed at a high level in the heart and brain. However, the transcript level of IRF4 was low even undetected in most tissues. After polyinosinic-polycytidylic acid (poly I:C) treatment, the transcript levels of IRF1 and IRF4 increased, while those of IRF5 and IRF7 decreased at some time points. However, IRF2 and IRF10 did not respond to the poly I:C challenge. In addition, infection with bacterial pathogen Aermonas hydrophila and an acanthocephalan could up-regulate the IRFs’ expression. The results suggested that IRFs are related to the immune response to viral, bacterial and parasitic infection in Asian swamp eel, which will help to clarify the biological function of IRFs in the immune system.

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Acknowledgments

This research was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31101928), Public Welfare Scientific Research Project (201003076), National Science and Technology Support Program (2013BAD20B06) and Academic discipline project of Anhui Academy of Agriculture Sciences (14A0519).

Conflict of Interest

The authors have no financial conflicts of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Animal Science, Yangtze University, Jingzhou, 434020, Hubei Province, People’s Republic of China

    Qiaoqing Xu, Jin Wan, Jingwen Zhou, Kete Ai & Daiqin Yang

  2. Yangtze University Engineering Research Center for Ecology and Agricultural Use of Wetland, Ministry of Education, Jingzhou, 434020, China

    Qiaoqing Xu & Daiqin Yang

  3. Fisheries Institute, Anhui Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Hefei, 230031, Anhui Province, China

    Tingshuang Pan

  4. Freshwater Aquaculture Collaborative Innovation Center of Hubei Province, Wuhan, 430070, China

    Daiqin Yang

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  1. Qiaoqing Xu
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  2. Jin Wan
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Correspondence to Daiqin Yang.

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Xu, Q., Wan, J., Pan, T. et al. Antiviral genes in the Asian swamp eel Monopterus albus: comparison of tissue expression and inducible expression of six interferon regulatory factors. Genes Genom 37, 429–440 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13258-015-0271-8

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