A source of premium animal protein, crustaceans are widely distributed and cultivated around the world. Short-term or long-term starvation events occur frequently owing to natural environment changes or manual management strategies in the life cycle of crustaceans. The result induced by starvation is that somatic growth of crustaceans will be retarded, while the immune mechanism is activated in this process. The aim of this study was to investigate whether the immune regulatory pathways are involved in the growth of crustaceans. Twelve muscle tissue transcriptomes of the oriental river prawn Macrobrachium nipponense were sequenced across four fasting stages lasting 0, 7, 14 and 21 d. The results showed that three immune-related pathways were involved in the growth of M. nipponense by regulating actin expression inducing the chemokine signaling pathway, the leukocyte transendothelial migration pathway and the FcR-mediated phagocytosis pathway. Furthermore, we employed RNA interference (RNAi) to further verify the effects that genes involved in the pathways had on regulating growth of M. nipponense. Comparative transcriptional analysis and RNA interference reveal that VASP and WAVE positively regulated the expression of actin; however, WASP negatively regulated the expression of actin. This is the first report that the immune regulatory pathways play key roles in the growth of crustaceans. Our results will not only provide an entirely new understanding of the immune mechanism of crustaceans from a unique angle but also further enrich and develop the theory of growth and developmental biology in crustaceans.
Keywords: Growth; Immune; Macrobrachium nipponense; RNAi; Transcriptomes.
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