Fish immunity in a warming world
Authors: Parker, B., Amelia, W., Britton, R., Andreou, D. and Buchan, S.
Conference: British Society for Immunology Annual Conference
Dates: 5-8 December 2023
Abstract:Acute and chronic temperature changes pose significant challenges to ectotherms like fish. As sea and river temperatures increasingly exhibit extreme temperature fluctuations, the impact on fish is likely to be significant. Temperature stress is known to cause immune dysregulation in fish. However, inconsistencies in experimental approach between studies make it difficult to obtain a global view of the impacts of temperature stress on fish immunity. Many published studies use restricted sets of immune biomarkers, obtained at a restricted set of time points, thereby failing to provide the detailed spatiotemporal picture needed to fully understand whole organism immunity. Coupled with inconsistent definitions of ‘acute’ and ‘chronic’ exposure, a paucity of studies incorporating antigenic challenge and/or functional assays, and significant confounding variables (e.g. species studied, the genetically outbred nature of that species, dietary supplementation, hypoxia and the nature of any antigenic challenge), gaining a comprehensive view of the extant literature in this arena is challenging.
To provide clarity on the impact of temperature stress on fish immunity, we performed a systematic review of relevant peer-reviewed publications between Jan 2020 and June 2022. To this end, the Web of Science database was mined using the terms ‘temperature’, ‘fish*’ and ‘Immun*’ and filtered for relevant categories. Duplicate studies and those not incorporating temperature as an independent variable were manually excluded. Data from the final 72 articles were extracted and compiled to include details of >20 variables including magnitude/directionality of immune biomarker change, method of measurement and details of any antigenic challenge. Species information from Fishbase were added. Downstream analysis revealed remarkably consistent impacts of temperature stress on fish with transcript levels of key immune regulatory cytokines most obviously affected. These data provide a platform to understand the impact of the climate crisis on the immunological fitness of farmed and wild fish stocks.
Source: Manual