Figure 1
Poly(I:C) as other dsRNA can protect against viral infection and reduce mortality due to viral infection (a) Kaplan–Meier survival curves were generated from spats primed by injection after anesthesia with 5 µg/animal of different nucleic acids (poly(I:C) HMW; poly(I:C) LMW; OsHV1_dsRNA; OsHV1_ssRNA; GFP_dsRNA) or filtered seawater (FSW) as a control and injected 1 day post-priming with OsHV-1 µvar homogenate (1.79 × 107 copies of DNA polymerase -DP- gene per oyster) or OsHV-1-free control homogenate. Mortalities in each group of 30 oysters (10 per tank, n = 3 × 10 per treatment) were monitored for 9 days after infection. Controls reaching 100% survival appear hidden and merged behind the poly(I:C) primed line (green). Different letters next to the graphed lines indicate statistically significant difference among treatment at a-b, p-value < 0.05; b-c p-value < 0.0001 (log-rank test, n = 30). (b) OsHV-1 DNA detection by quantitative PCR in 3 pools of 3 spats in the same experiment. Results are expressed as the mean number of DP gene copies detected per ng of genomic DNA extracted from whole spat pools. The effect of priming on OsHV-1 loads was determined using Kruskal-Wallis test (p-value < 0.05). Significant differences between treatments were performed compared to T0 using Mann-Whitney (n = 3 pools of 3 oysters)(*p- value < 0.1).
