Effects of different lipopolysaccharide preparations on neutrophil function in the fathead minnow, Pimephales promelas Rafinesque

Abstract

The fish innate immune response to pathogensrelies on the adequate function of neu trophilicgranulocytes (Palic´, Andreasen, Herolt, Menzel &Roth 2006). The ability of neutrophils to phago-cytose microor ganisms and cellular debris is essen-tial for normal development an d survival of animalpopulations (Segal 2005). The evaluation of neu-trophil function is valuable for assessing the healthstatus of individuals and fish populations (Smith &Lumsden 1983). Resistance of fishes to septic shockand tolerance to high concentrations of lipopoly-saccharide (LPS) was observed as a major differencebetween mammalian and fish innate immuneresponses (Berczi, Bertok & Bereznai 1966). Thisfunctional difference could be attri buted to severalcostimulatory molecules and intracellular mediatorsbeing absent in fish, but active in mammals duringresponse to LPS stimulation (Iliev, Roach, Mac-kenzie, Planas & Goetz 2005). Most fish do notpossess a Toll-like receptor (TLR) with sequencesimilarity to mammalian TLR4 (Leulier & Lemai-tre 2008) and the ones that do have no ability forTLR4 downstream signalling (Sepulcre, Alcaraz-Perez, Lopez-Munoz, Roca, Meseguer, Cayuela &Mulero 2009). Regardless of the absence andfunctionality of TLR4 and costimulatory molecules,bacterial LPS can induce a robus t inflammatorygene response in innate immune fish cells, but atconcentrations 1000-fold higher than is commonlyobserved in mammalian species ( lgmL)1vs.ng mL)1) (Palic´, Ostojic, Andreasen & Roth2007; Mackenzie, Roher, Boltan˜a & Goetz 2010).In contrast, ultrapure LPS preparations are rela-tively inactive in fish (Iliev et al. 2005).