AUTHOR=Dickerson Harry W. , Findly Robert Craig 

TITLE=Vertebrate Adaptive Immunity—Comparative Insights from a Teleost Model

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Immunology

VOLUME=8

YEAR=2017

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/immunology/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2017.01379

DOI=10.3389/fimmu.2017.01379

ISSN=1664-3224

ABSTRACT=<p>The channel catfish (<italic>Ictalurus punctatus</italic>) and the ciliated protozoan parasite <italic>Ichthyophthirius multifiliis</italic> are used to study pathogen-specific protective immunity. In this review, we briefly describe this host–parasite system and discuss the comparative insights it provides on the adaptive immune response of vertebrates. We include studies related to cutaneous mucosal immunity, B cell memory responses, and analyses of αβ T cell receptor (TCR) repertoires. This host–parasite model has played an important role in elucidating host protective responses to parasite invasion and for comparative studies of vertebrate immunity. Recent findings from bioinformatics analyses of TCR β repertoires suggest that channel catfish preferentially expand specific clonotypes that are stably integrated in the genome. This finding could have broad implications related to diversity in lymphocyte receptors of early vertebrates.</p>