Function of shrimp STAT during WSSV infection

• The mortality of STAT silenced shrimp during WSSV infection reduced significantly.
• Inhibition of STAT activity attenuates the effects of WSSV in cultured Hpt cells.
• Shrimp STAT benefits WSSV replication.

JAK/STAT signaling pathway plays key roles in the antiviral immunity of mammals, fish and insect. However, limited knowledge is known about the function of JAK/STAT signaling pathway in the antiviral immunity of shrimp although virus disease has caused severe mortality in shrimp aquaculture. In order to understand the function of JAK/STAT signaling pathway in the antiviral immunity of shrimp, dsRNA interfering technique was used to silence the expression of STAT gene in Litopenaeus vannamei, and the mortality of shrimp was detected after WSSV infection. Furthermore, the expressions of some potential target genes regulated by STAT or genes related to RNA interfering pathway were detected in STAT silenced shrimp during WSSV infection. The WSSV copy number in STAT silenced shrimp was 102–103 copies/ng DNA which was much lower than that in the control. The mortality in STAT silenced shrimp caused by WSSV infection decreased very significantly compared to their controls. The function of STAT was verified in vitro cultured cells of hematopoietic tissue of crayfish Cherax quadricarinatus by adding specific inhibitor of STAT3(S3I-201), and the cultured cells treated with S3I-201 showed much less WSSV copy number than their controls, which further suggested that STAT might be helpful for the replication of WSSV. Expression analysis on the potential STAT target genes and genes in RNA interfering pathway provide important information for understanding the functional mechanism of STAT in antiviral immunity of shrimp.