December 14, 2022
Keio University
A group of researchers, including Assistant Professor Mizuki Taguchi and Assistant Professor Ryohei Furukawa from the Department of Biology, Faculty of Letters, Keio University, and graduate student Kota Minakata from the Graduate School of Science and Technology at the same university, has discovered that the immunological self of the sea star *Asterina pectinifera* is established during the post-metamorphic juvenile stage. The group hypothesized that the immune system matures around the time of metamorphosis, based on the observation that while the immune system of *A. pectinifera* during its embryonic and larval stages does not mount an immune response against allogeneic individuals, the immune system of post-metamorphic adults rejects them. By tracking the development of chimeric larvae created from the cells of multiple embryos, they revealed that all allogeneic mixed chimeras died between two weeks and two months after metamorphosing and growing into juveniles. These results indicate that the immune system of *A. pectinifera* matures during the juvenile stage and acquires the ability to reject allogeneic individuals. This research provides a foundation for studies on the ontogeny of the immune system and its self/non-self recognition mechanisms in invertebrates.
The results of this research were published in the online edition of "Frontiers in Immunology" on December 6, 2022.
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