Single-cell RNA sequencing analysis of shrimp immune cells identifies macrophage-like phagocytes

  1. Peng Yang
  2. Yaohui Chen
  3. Zhiqi Huang
  4. Huidan Xia
  5. Ling Cheng
  6. Hao Wu
  7. Yueling Zhang
  8. Fan Wang  Is a corresponding author
  1. Shantou University, China
  2. Genedenovo Biotechnology Company Limited, China

Abstract

Despite the importance of innate immunity in invertebrates, the diversity and function of innate immune cells in invertebrates are largely unknown. Using single-cell RNA-seq, we identified prohemocytes, monocytic hemocytes, and granulocytes as the three major cell-types in the white shrimp hemolymph. Our results identified a novel macrophage-like subset called monocytic hemocytes 2 (MH2) defined by the expression of certain marker genes, including Nlrp3 and Casp1. This subtype of shrimp hemocytes is phagocytic and expresses markers that indicate some conservation with mammalian macrophages. Combined, our work resolves the heterogenicity of hemocytes in a very economically important aquatic species and identifies a novel innate immune cell subset that is likely a critical player in the immune responses of shrimp to threatening infectious diseases affecting this industry.

Data availability

The sequence data reported in this paper have been deposited in the Genome Sequence Archive of the Beijing Institute of Genomics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, gsa.big.ac.cn (accession no. PRJCA006297). All other data are available in this manuscript and online in the Supplementary Material.

The following data sets were generated

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Peng Yang

    Institute of Marine Sciences, Shantou University, Shantou, China
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-8298-8926
  2. Yaohui Chen

    Department of Biology, Shantou University, Shantou, China
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-4044-4373
  3. Zhiqi Huang

    Department of Biology, Shantou University, Shantou, China
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  4. Huidan Xia

    Department of Biology, Shantou University, Shantou, China
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  5. Ling Cheng

    Genedenovo Biotechnology Company Limited, Guangzhou, China
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  6. Hao Wu

    Genedenovo Biotechnology Company Limited, Guangzhou, China
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  7. Yueling Zhang

    Institute of Marine Sciences, Shantou University, Shantou, China
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  8. Fan Wang

    Institute of Marine Sciences, Shantou University, Shantou, China
    For correspondence
    wangfan@stu.edu.cn
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-6059-6956

Funding

National Natural Science Foundation of China (41976123)

  • Fan Wang

Guangdong Science and Technology Department (14600703)

  • Fan Wang

Li Ka Shing Foundation (2020LKSFG01E)

  • Yueling Zhang

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Ethics

Animal experimentation: All the animal-related experiments were in accordance with Shantou University guidelines.

Copyright

© 2022, Yang et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

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  1. Peng Yang
  2. Yaohui Chen
  3. Zhiqi Huang
  4. Huidan Xia
  5. Ling Cheng
  6. Hao Wu
  7. Yueling Zhang
  8. Fan Wang
(2022)
Single-cell RNA sequencing analysis of shrimp immune cells identifies macrophage-like phagocytes
eLife 11:e80127.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.80127

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.80127

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