Coordinated down-regulation of the antigen processing machinery in the gills of amoebic gill disease-affected Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar L.)

Abstract

Several important cultured marine fish are highly susceptible to an ectoparasitic condition known as amoebic gill disease (AGD). In AGD-affected fish, modulation of IL-1β, p53 and p53-regulated transcripts is restricted to the (multi)focal AGD-associated gill lesions. To determine whether this lesion-restricted modulation of transcripts occurs on a transcriptome-wide scale and to identify mechanisms that underpin the susceptibility of fish to AGD, we compared the transcriptome of AGD lesions with "normal" tissue from AGD-affected and healthy individuals. Global gene expression profiling using a 16 K salmonid microarray, revealed a total of 176 significantly regulated annotated features and o..