关键词: 斜带石斑鱼, 神经坏死病毒, 免疫相关基因, 表达量, Epinephelus coioides, nervous neurosis virus, immune-related genes, expressions

Abstract: Nervous necrosis virus (NNV) can cause massive mortality in larval and juvenile stages of orange-spotted grouper (Epinephelus coioides). Due to the lack of viral genomes, virus-like particles (VLPs) are considered as one of the safest and most effective vaccine to prevent viral diseases. In this study, the expressions of three immune-related genes (IFN, TNF-α and IRF3) were analyzed in 9 tissues (heart, liver, spleen, kidney, intestine, sputum, blood and eye) of healthy groupers. The gene expressions in main immune tissues (liver, spleen and kidney) were also detected after vaccination by intramuscular injection. Results showed that mRNA transcripts of IFN, TNF-α and IRF3 were observed in nine tissues of the grouper, and the highest expression values of IFN, TNF-α and IRF3 were detected in brain, gill and blood, respectively. The vaccine alone was not able to enhance the expression of genes, including IFN, TNF-α and IRF3 in liver as well as IFN in spleen and kidney. But the expressions of these genes were up-regulated by injecting vaccine with CpG oligodeoxynucleotide (ODN) motifs. Vaccine immunity alone could up-regulate the expressions of IFN, TNF-α and IRF3 in other tissues, but their highest expression values were smaller than that of the corresponding adjuvant group, indicating that the efficacy of vaccine could be further enhanced by CpG ODN after vaccination.