The understanding of the fish immune system is of immense importance for developing an efficient and environmentally friendly fish farming, a huge industry in Norway. The fish should preferably grow fast and in dense groups, but without extensive use of antibiotics to counter infections.
A very important part of the fish immune system – and the first line of defence – is the fish’s skin. The main cell type of the outer skin layer (called the epidermis) are the keratocytes. These cells can crawl and remodel very fast and are thought to be central in fish wound healing and in fighting infections.
We have developed a technique to visualize these cells over large areas and simultaneously at high resolution, hopefully contributing towards a better understanding of keratocytes and the fish’s defence mechanisms in the future.
Reference:
Ida S. Opstad, Daniel H. Hansen, Sebastian Acuña, Florian Ströhl, Anish Priyadarshi, Jean-Claude Tinguely, Firehun T. Dullo, Roy A. Dalmo, Tore Seternes, Balpreet S. Ahluwalia, and Krishna Agarwal, "Fluorescence fluctuation-based super-resolution microscopy using multimodal waveguided illumination," Optics Express Vol. 29, Issue 15, pp. 23368-23380 (2021)