Crustacean blood cell cultures; a new tool for immune studies and parasite-host interactions

Abstract

Studies about the ways in which hemocytes are produced and differentiate in crustaceans are important for basic understanding of the immune defence in these animals.We have also for the first time from any invertebrate made a cell culture from hematopoietic stem cells of freshwater crayfish as well as from tiger shrimp, which we can manipulate to differentiate in vitro. The hemocyte precursors do not express prophenoloxidase, but this transcript can be induced in vitro by addition of a factor. We have also confirmed that hematopoietic cells from the tiger shrimp differentiate in vitro as a response to a similar factor.