HSMI-CMS-Vacc - Development of vaccines against HSMI and CMS In Atlantic salmon

There is a need for vaccines against HSMI and CMS, as these diseases are causing losses and reduced welfare in Norwegian salmon farming today. Being able to culture virus in cells is the basic step for producing and studying a virus, and allows for testing and production of whole virus vaccines. We aim to develop and optimize culturing methods for PRV and PMCV, which have been difficult to propagate. We have already created a strong basis for this work by being able to culture PRV in fish primary cells.

Successful vaccination is an efficient way to increase fish health and welfare. Controlling the infections among farmed salmon also reduces the risk for spread of infectious agents and diseases to the environment. The present project aims to elaborate the recent breakthroughs regarding causal relationship in farmed Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) between piscine reovirus (PRV) and Heart and skeletal muscle inflammation (HSMI); and piscine myocarditis virus (PMCV) and cardiomyopathy syndrome (CMS). Both diseases cause severe economic losses to salmonid aquaculture, with 134 and 100 fish farms registered with outbreaks in 2013, respectively. Protective vaccines against these diseases are very much needed.

Inactivated whole virus vaccines formulated with an adjuvant are the most commonly used vaccines against viral diseases in farmed salmonids. In general, live attenuated vaccines induce the most protective effects and long-lasting immunity, but to avoid the risk for reversion to a virulent form, effective whole –virus antigen or sub-unit vaccines are preferred in aquaculture. However, sufficient in vitro propagation of PRV and PMCV have not been successful in commonly used fish cell lines and thus the development of inactivated whole-virus vaccines has not been possible. Furthermore, there are no reports of successful subunit vaccines against HSMI or CMS.

Recently, it was demonstrated that red blood cells (RBCs) are the major target cells of PRV and exploitation of this knowledge for development of an ex vivo PRV-RBC culture system using primary erythrocytes has been promising.

This project interacts with the research platform “Fish Virus Vaccines (ViVaFish).

Project manager

Maria K. Dahle

Partners

  • Zoetis/Pharmaq
  • NMBU
Start
2014-01-01
Finish
2018-12-31
Status
Finished
Funding
Funded by the Research Council of Norway
Research Areas
Fish health, Immunology, Molecular biology, Vaccinology, Virology

Forskere

Maria K Dahle

Seniorforsker og Professor II v/UiT
Show phone number
Send email