| Summary: | Recent mass mortality outbreaks around the world in Pacific oysters, Crassostrea gigas, have seriously affected the aquaculture economy. Although the causes for these mortality outbreaks appear complex, infectious agents are involved. Two pathogens are associated with mass mortality outbreaks, the virus ostreid herpesvirus 1 (OsHV-1) and the bacterium Vibrio aestuarianus. Here we describe the interactions between these 2 pathogens and autophagy, a conserved intracellular pathway playing a key role in innate immunity. We show for the first time that autophagy pathway is present and functional in Pacific oysters and plays an important role to protect animals from infections. This study contributes to better understand the innate immune system of Pacific oysters. This work was partially funded through the EU project Bivalife (FP7 KBBE, contract n 266157), the Poitou Charentes Region and DPMA (Direction des p^eches maritimes et de l’aquaculture, AESTU project). David Rubinsztein is aWellcome Trust Prinicipal Research Fellow. This is the final published version. It first appeared at http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15548627.2015.1017188.
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