Effects of direct immersion in antigen on immunological memory in young carp, Cyprinus carpio

The study asks whether, in fish, antigens encountered early in life can prime the immune system to yield memory responses on subsequent challenge with the same antigen and, if so, whether positive immunity or immunological tolerance is induced. The direct immersion method of vaccination was used to prime 4 week old carp, Cyprinus carpio, and was compared with priming by injection. Three different forms of antigen were used: the thymus dependent antigen, human gamma globulin (HGG) in soluble and in particulate (latex bound) form; also the putative thymus independent bacterin, formalin-killed Aeromonas salmonicida. The thymus dependent antigens were also used on 9 month old animals. In 4 week old carp, A. salmonicida vaccine delivered either by direct immersion or intraperitoneally (i.p.) yielded enhanced serum antibody levels and heightened proliferative responses in the lymphoid tissue of the spleen and kidney. Latex-bound HGG applied by direct immersion was found to partially suppress secondary antibody production while still eliciting enhanced proliferation. The decrease in antibody production following direct immersion priming of young fish with latex-bound HGG was not nearly as marked as the tolerance induced following priming with latex-bound HGG by the i.p. route and, unlike the tolerance induced by the injection route, may possibly still occur in older fish. When HGG was applied to young carp in soluble form by direct immersion it was ineffective and failed to influence memory induction. This is in contrast to the antibody tolerance, accompanied by an enhanced proliferative response following challenge, which resulted from administration of the soluble antigen by injection in the young fish. The status of the immune system in these antibody-tolerant fish is still far from clear. This highlights the need for further investigation of the role of cell-mediated reactions and local immunity in the immune responses of fish.