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Simple Summary: Parasite diseases are recognized as major concerns in the fugu aquaculture industry in China. While understanding the genetic mechanisms of immune response is a crucial step which can facilitate disease control and selective breeding. In this study, transcriptome analysis was performed to identify key genes and understand the underlying mechanisms associated with Cryptocaryon irritans resistance. Finally, our study provided insights into the immunosuppression in fugu under C. irritans infection. The tiger pufferfish (Takifugu rubripes), also known as fugu, has recently suffered from severe C. irritans infections under aquaculture environment, yet the underlying immune mechanisms against the parasite remain poorly understood. In this study, we conducted a comprehensive transcriptome analysis of the gill tissue from infected and uninfected fish using PacBio long-read (one pooled sample each for seriously infected and healthy individuals, respectively) and Illumina short-read (three pools for mildly infected, seriously infected, and healthy individuals, respectively) RNA sequencing technologies. After aligning sequence data to fugu's reference genome, 47,307 and 34,413 known full-length transcripts were identified and profiled in healthy and infected fish, respectively. Similarly, we identified and profiled 1126 and 803 novel genes that were obtained from healthy and infected fish, respectively. Interestingly, we found a decrease in the number of alternative splicing (AS) events and long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) after infection with C. irritans, suggesting that they may be involved in the regulation of the immune response in fugu. There were 687 and 1535 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in moderately and heavily infected fish, respectively, compared to uninfected fish. Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analyses showed that immune-related DEGs in the two comparison groups were mainly enriched in cytokine-cytokine receptor interactions, ECM-receptor interactions, T-cell receptor signaling pathways, Th1 and Th2 cell differentiation, and Th17 cell differentiation pathways. Further analysis revealed that a large number of immune-related genes were downregulated in infected fish relative to uninfected ones, such as CCR7, IL7R, TNFRSF21, CD4, COL2A1, FOXP3B, and ITGA8. Our study suggests that C. irritans is potentially a highly efficient parasite that may disrupt the defense mechanisms of fugu against it. In addition, in combination of short-read RNA sequencing and previous genome-wide association analyses, we identified five key genes (NDUFB6, PRELID1, SMOX, SLC25A4, and DENND1B) that might be closely associated with C. irritans resistance. This study not only provides valuable resources of novel genic transcripts for further research, but also provides new insights into the immune mechanisms underlying C. irritans infection response in farmed fugu. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The healthcare industry is confronted with the challenge to offer an increasing variety of healthcare services while in the meantime controlling rapidly increasing healthcare costs. Mass customization has been proven to be an effective strategy to fulfill customers' individual specific needs with high efficiency and low cost in the manufacturing industry. This paper investigates the theoretical feasibility and practical applicability of adopting mass customization as a conceptual framework for designing a healthcare service delivery system. The nature of healthcare delivery systems and their evolution are discussed relative to those of manufacturing systems. Recent research in personalized medicine, consumer-driven healthcare, consumer healthcare informatics, and integrated healthcare delivery is reviewed as enabling technologies towards mass customization of healthcare services. By synthesizing these scattered efforts in different streams of literature, this paper concludes that mass customization can contribute to the redesign of healthcare service systems, and delineates a roadmap for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]