Evaluation Summary:
The shrimp market is growing globally, with 8.12 tons produced in 2020. The market size is thought to reach $55 billion by 2027. Most of the market comes from farms, the white shrimp, Penaeus vannamei, being one of the most commonly farmed species worldwide. The present study provides a single cell transcriptional atlas of the white shrimp, P. vannamei, immune cells in the hemolymph, known as hemocytes. White shrimp single cell RNA sequencing studies uncovered two macrophage-like populations, one of them with markers similar to mammalian macrophages. These findings redefine the current classification of shrimp immune cells which has been done using morphological approaches and via targeted qPCR studies but never using single cell transcriptomics.
(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 and Reviewer #2 agreed to share their name with the authors.)