Convergent evolution of mucosal immune responses at the buccal cavity of teleost fish

Summary The buccal mucosa (BM) is a critical first line of defence in terrestrial animals. In order to gain further insights into the evolutionary origins and primordial roles of BM in teleosts here we show that rainbow trout, a teleost fish, contains a diffuse mucosal associated lymphoid tissue (MALT) within its buccal cavity. Upon parasite infection, a fish immunoglobulin specialized in mucosal immunity (sIgT) was induced to a high degree, and parasite-specific sIgT responses were mainly detected in the buccal mucus. Moreover, we show that the trout buccal microbiota is prevalently coated with sIgT. Overall our findings revealed that the MALT is present in the BM of a non-tetrapod species. As fish IgT and mucus-producing cells are evolutionary unrelated to mammalian IgA and salivary glands respectively, our findings indicate that mucosal immune responses in the BM of teleost fish and tetrapods evolved through a process of convergent evolution.