Infectious myonecrosis virus (IMNV) induces upregulation of RNAi-related genes in white shrimp Penaeus vannamei

Abstract

Infectious myonecrosis virus (IMNV) still causes significant economic and social losses in American and Asian shrimp farming. In this work, we investigated the transcription patterns of Sid-1, Dicer-2 and Argonaute-2 genes from the RNAi mechanism in Penaeus vannamei naturally infected with IMNV, and injected with inoculum containing 1.02 × 10⁵, 1.02 × 10⁴ or 1.02 × 10³ IMNV copies‧μL⁻¹. We observed that infection with increasing IMNV concentrations affected the transcription levels of these key genes. However, the viral load did not decrease during the experiment. We suggest that changes in Sid-1 mRNA expression could be used as marker of viral replication for evaluating sanitary status in P. vannamei farming.