ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Immunol.
Sec. Comparative Immunology
The involvement of miRNAs in the enhanced immune response of oysters via haemocyte-mediated immune priming
Provisionally accepted
- Dalian Ocean University, Dalian, China
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Immune priming enhances innate immunity, leading to a sustained and augmented response upon secondary challenge. The emerging evidence has highlighted the crucial role of endogenous microRNAs in trained immunity of vertebrates. However, the regulatory role of miRNAs in immune priming of invertebrates remains largely unknown. In the present study, the miRNA expression profile in the haemocyte-mediated immune priming of oysters Crassostrea gigas was examined. There were 115 up-and 212 down-regulated miRNAs screened after primary stimulation, and 107 up-and 103 down-regulated miRNAs identified after secondary stimulation. Among these, 67 miRNAs were differentially expressed in both the primary and secondary stimulations of Vibrio splendidus. Putative immune enhancing miRNAs (Cgi-miR-1175-P6/P7-y and novel-0095-3p) showed lower expression upon secondary stimulation compared to the primary response. KEGG analysis indicated that target genes of Cgi-miR-1175-P6/P7-y and novel-0095-3p were enriched in cell proliferation-related pathways and metabolic pathways. Target prediction suggests that Cgi-miR-1175-P6/P7-y and novel-m0095-3p may target genes involved in cell survival (CgTEP, CgIAP), cell proliferation (CgCDK6 and CgCDK14) and pattern recognition (CgSCARF2), respectively. Through in vivo injections of Cgi-miR-1175-P6/P7-y mimics, both the rate of EdU+ haemocytes and the mRNA expression levels of its target genes (CgCDK6, CgCDK14 and CgSCARF2) were significantly reduced in mimics-treated group after Vibrio splendidus stimulation, whereas the opposite effects were observed in the Cgi-miR-1175-P6/P7-y inhibitor-treated group. These findings highlight the regulatory role of miRNAs in immune priming and identify Cgi-miR-1175-P6/P7-y as a key post-transcriptional regulator of haemocyte proliferation.
Keywords: Cgi-miR-1175-P6/P7-y, Crassostrea gigas, haemocyte proliferation, immune priming, miRNA
Received: 25 Nov 2025; Accepted: 16 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Zhou, Guo, Wang, Song, Dai, Zuo, Wang and Song. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Lingling Wang
Linsheng Song
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