Wap65 is a molecule similar to the mammalian hemopexin that is a serum glycoprotein produced mainly by the liver with high affinity to heme. Its primary role is participating in iron metabolism scavenging heme that is released into the plasma and transporting it to the liver. It has been reported an important role of hemopexin in the inflammation as an acute-phase protein and its production is ...

Erythrocytes or red cells are the most abundant cells in the blood of vertebrate organisms and their primary function is the transport of oxygen. Nevertheless, it is known that these cells also play a role in some immune responses. Nk-lysin is a cationic antimicrobial peptide mainly produced by natural killer cells and cytotoxic T lymphocytes and stored in cytolytic granules together with perfo...

BACKGROUND Turbot Scophthalmus maximus is an economically important species extensively aquacultured in China. The genetic selection program is necessary and urgent for the sustainable development of this industry, requiring more and more genome background knowledge. Transcriptome sequencing is an excellent alternative way to identify transcripts involved in specific biological processes and ex...

Edwardsiella tarda, a bacterial pathogen to farmed fish as well as humans, possesses the genes of two lysozyme inhibitors, ivy and mliC (ivy(Et) and mliC(Et)). We recently studied IvyEt and found it to be implicated in E. tarda virulence. In the present study, we characterized MliC(Et) in comparison with Ivy(Et) in a turbot model. MliC(Et) contains the FWSKG motif and two cysteines (C33 and C98...

Streptococcus iniae is a Gram-positive bacterium and a severe pathogen to a wide range of economically important fish species. In addition, S. iniae is also a zoonotic pathogen and can cause serious infections in humans. In this study, we identified from a pathogenic S. iniae strain a putative bacteriocin, Sil, and examined its biological activity. Sil is composed of 101 amino acid residues and...

Toll-like receptor (TLR) 3 is an important member of the TLR family, recognizes invading pathogens specifically double-stranded RNA viruses. In this paper, turbot (Scophthalmus maximus) TLR3 gene (smTLR3) was cloned and its expression profiles were analyzed with RT-PCR and In situ hybridization. Then its expression was investigated in cultured peripheral blood leukocytes (PBLs) simulated with p...