Recent Studies on Pathogen-Host Interaction of Aquatic Animals
A special issue of Fishes (ISSN 2410-3888). This special issue belongs to the section "Welfare, Health and Disease".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 October 2026 | Viewed by 101
Special Issue Editors
Interests: invertebrate immunology; innate immunity; aquatic etiology; transcriptomics; gene expression regulation
Interests: aquaculture; fish immunology; innate immunity; pattern recognition receptors; comparative immunology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Aquatic pathogens, such as viruses, bacteria, fungi and parasites, may infect fish, crustaceans, mollusks, and other aquatic organisms. Pathogen-induced diseases cannot only determine the survival or death of aquatic individuals (populations), but also pose severe threats to aquaculture, wild aquatic ecosystems, and even public health. The outcome of any pathogen-host encounter depends on the competition between pathogen virulence and host defense capacity, shaped by host genetics, age, immune status, nutrition, and other comorbidities. Whether pathogens can breach host physical and chemical barriers, such as the skin, mucosal epithelia, and antimicrobial secretions? Whether the host triggers its immune defense (innate immunity, adaptive immunity, or both) immediately when sensing the pathogens? In essence, this is the issue of the interaction between the pathogen and the host. Pathogen-host interactions represent the dynamic, multilayered biological crosstalk between infectious organisms and their host. These interactions span molecular, cellular, tissue, and systemic levels, and determine whether infection results in clearance, asymptomatic colonization, mild disease, or severe pathogenesis. Understanding pathogen-host interactions may: (1) enrich and strength the foundational of aquatic infectious diseases; (2) obtaining molecular markers for selecting disease-resistant varieties; (3) identifying novel drug targets; (3) providing new clues for aquatic vaccine design and development; (4) establishing aquatic disease monitoring and prediction model; and (5) developing new strategies for aquatic disease prevention and control.
Dr. Yaoyao Zhan
Dr. Pengfei Zou
Dr. Yucong Huang
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Fishes is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- pathogen
- aquatic organisms
- host-pathogen interaction
- symptoms and responses
- molecular regulation (interaction) network
- pathogenesis mechanism
- disease control and prevention
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