2012 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

Studies on acute immune responses against dsRNA in Pacific oyster

Research Project

Project/Area Number	22780169
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Research Field	General fisheries
Research Institution	Tohoku University
Principal Investigator	ITOH Naoki 東北大学, 大学院・農学研究科, 助教 (30502736)
Project Period (FY)	2010 – 2012
Keywords	生理 / 生体防御 / パターン認識受容体 / 病原体関連分子パターン / 二枚貝 / 自然免疫
Research Abstract	Recently, it has been known that bivalve mollusks possess immune recognition systems against foreign materials. This study revealed that the Pacific oyster increased hemocyte numbers as immune reactions to dsRNA which represents virus invasion. On the other hand, another bivalve species, the Manila clam, does not show this response, suggesting that there are variations of dsRNA recognition systems among bivalve species. Moreover, the Manila clam without apparent responses against dsRNA is considered to be an ideal model organism for RNA inference experiments by dsRNA, and currently we conduct optimizationand standardization of RNAi for the clam host defense studies.