Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Correspondence: Irene Salinas isalinas unm. Immunoglobulins Igs are complex glycoproteins that play critical functions in innate and adaptive immunity of all jawed vertebrates.
Given the unique characteristics of mucosal barriers, secretory Igs sIgs have specialized to maintain homeostasis and keep pathogens at bay at mucosal tissues from fish to mammals. Similar to the role of mammalian IgA, IgT plays a predominant role in fish mucosal immunity.
Recent studies in IgT have illuminated the primordial role of sIgs in both microbiota homeostasis and pathogen control at mucosal sites. Ten years ago, IgT was discovered to be an immunoglobulin class specialized in mucosal immunity. Aiming at this year anniversary, the goal of this review is to summarize the current status of the field of fish Igs since that discovery, while identifying knowledge gaps and future avenues that will move the field forward in both basic and applied science areas.
Fish are covered by mucosal secretions that protect the living cells of all epithelial barriers from external aggressions. Many studies have highlighted the importance of mucus in fish physiology and immunological defense Dash et al. Early studies suggested that fish mucus contains immunoglobulins Igs that are produced locally rather than representing transudates from plasma Rombout et al.
Further, these pioneer studies revealed that the composition of fish mucus changes in response to infection or vaccination Salinas et al. In early studies, the presence of specific mucosal Igs were already detected in the fish skin mucus following vaccination with bacterins, thus already predicting that specific mucosal Igs were an important aspect of the fish immune response.
