White spot syndrome virus (WSSV) is currently the most severely viral pathogen for farmed crustaceans such as shrimp and crayfish, which has been causing huge economic losses for crustaceans farming worldwide every year. Unfortunately, study on the molecular mechanisms of WSSV has been restricted by the lack of crustacean cell lines for WSSV propagation as well as the incompletely annotated genomes for host species, resulting in limited elucidation for WSSV pathogenesis at present. In addition to the findings of anti-WSSV response in shrimp, some of novel cellular events involved in WSSV infection have been recently revealed in crayfish, including endocytosis and intracellular transport of WSSV, innate immune pathways in response to WSSV infection, and regulation of viral gene expression by host genes. Despite these advances, many fundamental gaps in WSSV pathogenesis are still remaining, for example, how WSSV genome enters into nucleus and how the progeny virions are fully assembled in the host cell nucleus. In this review, recent findings in WSSV infection mechanism and the antiviral immunity against WSSV in crayfish are summarized and discussed, which may provide us a better understanding of the WSSV pathogenesis as well as new ideas for the target design of antiviral drugs against WSSV in crustaceans farming.

白斑综合症病毒（WSSV）是目前对虾、小龙虾等养殖甲壳类动物最严重的病毒病原体，每年都给全世界甲壳类养殖业造成巨大的经济损失。不幸的是，由于缺乏用于WSSV繁殖的甲壳类动物细胞系以及宿主物种的基因组注释不完整，限制了WSSV的分子机制研究，导致目前对WSSV发病机制的阐明有限。除了在虾中发现抗 WSSV 反应外，最近在小龙虾中发现了一些与 WSSV 感染有关的新细胞事件，包括 WSSV 的内吞作用和细胞内转运、响应 WSSV 感染的先天免疫途径以及病毒的调节。宿主基因的基因表达。尽管取得了这些进展，WSSV 发病机制的许多基本空白仍然存在，例如，WSSV 基因组如何进入细胞核以及后代病毒粒子如何在宿主细胞核中完全组装。本文综述和讨论了小龙虾WSSV感染机制和抗病毒免疫方面的最新发现，为我们更好地理解WSSV的发病机制和甲壳类抗WSSV抗病毒药物的靶向设计提供新思路。农业。