New study identifies immune response biomarkers, novel pathways to support Mollusca aquaculture

Understanding the immune systems of oysters and clams is important in monitoring the effects of pollution and climate change on the health of molluscan species and the potential impacts on the aquaculture industry. Their immune responses also can serve as indicators of changes in ocean environments.

A new study involving the University of Maine assessed immune responses in four economically important marine mollusc species — the blue mussel, soft-shell clam, Eastern oyster, and Atlantic jackknife clam — and identified new biomarkers relating to changes in protein function involved in novel regulatory mechanisms of important metabolic and immunological pathways.

The discovery will aid further biomarker identification to benefit the aquaculture industry and provides new understanding of how these pathways function in diverse ways in different animal species.

“These biomarkers reveal how several different physiological functions can be generated from a single protein sequence. This gives added value to an organism’s physiology,” says Tim Bowden, UMaine associate professor of aquaculture and co-author of the study published as the cover article in the December 2020 issue of the journal Biology.

Read the full story from University of Maine here.