ERYTHROCYTE DEGENERATION IN THE ATLANTIC HERRING, 



CLUPEA HARENGUS HARENGUS L. 



Stuart W. Sherburne^ 



ABSTRACT 



Cytoplasmic inclusions, associated with erythrocytic degeneration, were found in the 

 circulating blood of herring from Boothbay Harbor, Maine, and from Passamaquoddy 

 Bay at Deer Island, N.B., Canada, in 1969. Except in one instance, when inclusions 

 occurred in herring from water of 2°C, all herring from Boothbay Harbor having in- 

 clusions were taken from seawater temperatures of 13.8°C or above. A relationship 

 appears to exist between inclusions in herring erythrocytes and stress factors, especially 

 temperature extremes. At a temperature of 16°C, 96% of a sample of herring were 

 affected with inclusions. Herring sampled at the highest temperature (16°C) were 

 markedly different from all other samples in their blood morphology and had the highest 

 incidence of inclusions. Inclusions were found in the Passamaquoddy Bay area in 2 of 

 the 50 herring sampled from a seawater temperature of 9.8°C, the highest temperature 

 sampled in that area. 



Inclusions rarely occurred more than one to a red cell and varied in size from 1.3 to 

 3.9 /I. In herring containing a high incidence of inclusions, the larger inclusions were 

 usually in the youngest red cells. Cells containing inclusions generally appeared rounded 

 and swollen. Either an abnormally high percentage of up to 90% immature red cells 

 or a low of 1 to 5% immature red cells generally characterized herring containing in- 

 clusions. 



The blood of herring has been studied at the 

 National Marine Fisheries Service Laboratory 

 at Boothbay Harbor to find physiological indi- 

 cators of environmental stress that may help 

 us to determine causes of fluctuations in success 

 of year classes. During this investigation I ob- 

 served inclusion bodies in the cytoplasm of the 

 red cells in many of the herring. In this report 

 I describe these inclusion bodies, their incidence, 

 and the abnormal blood cell morphology asso- 

 ciated with these bodies. 



Nonspecific cytoplasmic inclusions have been 

 reported in Fundulus sp. (Gardner and Yevich, 

 1969) occurring in wet smears in May and July 

 prior to, and at the beginning of the new breed- 

 ing season, but not evident in fixed smears. The 

 cytoplasm of erythrocytes from chinook salmon, 

 Oncorhynchiis tshaivytscha, sockeye salmon, 

 Oncorhynchus nerka, and adult rainbow trout, 

 Salmo gairdneri, contained granular material 



^ Northeast Fisheries Center, National Marine Fish- 

 eries Service, NOAA, West Boothbay Harbor, ME 04575. 



Manuscript accepted August 1972. 



FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 71, NO. 1, 1973. 



following fixation procedures (Ridgway, 1956) 

 that the author thought were of mitochondrial 

 origin. 



Laird and Bullock (1969) reported finding a 

 distinctive inclusion body formed in the cyto- 

 plasm of infected cells associated with piscine 

 erythrocytic necrosis which is responsible for 

 massive red blood cell destruction in Gadus mor- 

 hua from Passamaquoddy Bay. Liparis atlanti- 

 cus from Kent Island, N.B., Canada, and Myox- 

 ocephaliis octodecemspinosus from Portsmouth 

 Harbor, N.H. were lightly infected. 



MATERIALS AND METHODS 



The 355 herring examined in this study from 

 February through October 1969 consisted of 201 

 wild herring and 154 captive herring in 12 sam- 

 ples. The herring ranged in length from 12.5 

 to 30.4 cm and in weight from 10.6 to 214.5 g. 

 The wild herring were taken from four fisher- 

 men's catches between central Maine and Can- 

 ada. Three categories of herring are considered 



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