Immune Gene Expression & Thymus Development as Indicators of Immunocompetence in Lumpfish, Cyclopterus lumpus, L.
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Sea lice, namely Lepeophtheirus salmonis (Krøyer, 1837), are a significant threat to the financial and biological success of farmed Atlantic salmon and are one of the top contributors to economic losses in the industry. The use of lumpfish, Cyclopterus lumpus L., as cleaner fish in salmon net pens has increased recently in Europe and Atlantic Canada, due to their demonstrated efficacy in controlling sea lice. To mitigate associated threats to fish welfare and biosecurity, aquaculture operations producing lumpfish must closely monitor the fishes’ health and vaccinate them against harmful pathogens. An optimal vaccination regime has yet to be determined, as the understanding of lumpfish immune system development and adaptive immune response is still in its infancy. This project aims to identify and investigate the expression of genes directly related to the development of the lumpfish immune system and adaptive immune response, to establish when during development lumpfish become immunocompetent. Methodology includes gene expression analysis of immune genes: secretory immunoglobulin M (sIgM), T-cell receptor alpha (TCR a), and major histocompatibility complex II beta (MHCII b), and histological assessment of thymus development in lumpfish ranging from approximately -8 days post hatch (DPH) to 34 DPH. Gene expression results indicated significant differences in expression of sIgM between -8 DPH and all other sampled timepoints, and between 0 and 34 DPH. There was no significant difference of TCRa expression across sampled timepoints. Significant differences in expression of MHCII b were observed between 34 DPH and all other sampled timepoints, and between days 4-8 and days 19-31. Histopathology of the developing thymus indicated first instance of thymus presence at 4 DPH with potential zonation appearing at 23 and 29 DPH. These findings suggest the possibility of adaptive immunocompetence closely following 34 days post hatch, with significant expression of sIgM in the egg indicating potential evidence of maternal transfer. Significant upregulation of MHCII b at 34 DPH following thymus zonation could also indicate the beginning of lymphoid capabilities of the thymus and T-cell activity near or after this point of early development.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".