Lower Vertebrate Immunostimulation and effects on host-parasite interactions

大西洋鲑鱼养殖每年为加拿大经济贡献超过6亿美元。该行业备受争议，因为它对环境造成了明显的破坏，部分原因是通过海虱的传播，Lepeophtheirus salmonis感染野生种群。据估计，沙门氏菌感染和相关的化疗费用给加拿大工业造成的损失每年超过5000万美元。因此，养殖鲑鱼的海虱感染既是一个重要的环境问题，也是一个重要的经济问题，特别是在沿海社区和第一民族。在过去的二十年里，只有少数几种不同的治疗海虱的方法是可用的，最有效的治疗方法，在新千年的早期，是一种叫做SLICETM（先灵葆雅）的饲料治疗方法，由于海虱在过去的几年里在许多国家产生了抗药性，现在已经显示出无效。任何能够提供重要保护的新治疗方案、疫苗或免疫刺激剂都将立即产生经济影响，并提高加拿大鲑鱼养殖业的生产效率和可持续性。

Atlantic salmon farming contributes over $600 million annually to the Canadian economy. The industry is controversial due to the perceived damage it causes to the environment, in part, through the spread of sea lice, Lepeophtheirus salmonis infections to wild stocks. Losses to Canadian industry, attributed to L. salmonis infection and the associated cost of chemotherapeutic treatment, have been estimated at more than $50 million/yr. Therefore, sea lice infection in farmed salmon is both an important environmental and economic issue, especially within coastal communities and First Nations. Over the last two decades only a handful of different treatments against sea lice have been available, the most effective treatment, through the early part of the new millennium, was an in-feed treatment called SLICETM (Schering-Plough), which now has exhibited inefficacy due to resistance by sea lice in numerous countries over the past couple years. Any new treatment regime, vaccine or immunostimulant that can provide significant protection, would have immediate economic impact and improve Canadian salmon farming industry efficiency of production and sustainability. 'Silver bullet' vaccine strategies are unlikely for a complex metazoan parasite, however, we currently lack detailed knowledge of key parasitic processes in host selection and host modulation/maintenance and the immunogenicity of parasitic compounds therein, for sea lice. Crossing this barrier will open up the possibility of combinatorial strategies, whereby disguising host recognition molecules can be combined with targeting host innate signaling and responsiveness in concert with specific long-term parasite pathway disruption through multivalent vaccination. The goals of this research program are to understand copepod parasite settlement dynamics, settlement 'choice', and evolutionary pressures on the parasite-host interaction. Furthermore, this program seeks to put this knowledge to the continual test of developing applications for the aquaculture industry.