The demand for farm-raised channel catfish (Ictalurus punctatus) has grown tremendously in recent years due to year round availability, consistent quality, and healthy attributes of catfish. In 1993, over 459 million tons of catfish were produced in the United States (Anon., 1994). As this industry has grown, so has the amount of offal, trimmings, and other solid waste generated and the need to...

Vaccination is an effective strategy used for the protection of food animals against infectious diseases. A 2010 U.S. Department of Agriculture questionnaire examined U.S. catfish industry use (in 2009) of two commercial vaccines that provide protection against enteric septicemia of catfish (ESC) and columnaris disease, catfish producers' opinions regarding the percentage of vaccinated fish the...

Catfish (Ictalurus punctatus) cone horizontal cells contain N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptors, the function of which has yet to be determined. In the present study, we have examined the effect of NMDA receptor activation on voltage-gated ion channel activity. NMDA receptor activation produced a long-term downregulation of voltage-gated sodium and calcium currents but had no effect on the de...

This work was undertaken to investigate whether or not antigen processing and presentation are important in channel catfish in vitro secondary immune responses elicited with structurally defined proteins, namely, pigeon heart cytochrome C (pCytC), hen egg lysozyme, and horse myoglobin. The use of in vitro antigen-pulsed and fixed B cells or monocytes as antigen presenting cells (APC) resulted i...

As the global market for fisheries and aquaculture products expands, mislabeling of these products has become a growing concern in the food safety arena. Molecular species identification techniques hold the potential for rapid, accurate assessment of proper labeling. Here we developed and evaluated DNA barcodes for use in differentiating United States domestic and imported catfish species. Firs...

Animal protein, generally fish meal, has traditionally been used in the diet of channel catfish. However, our previous research indicates that animal protein is not needed for growing stockersize catfish to food fish when the fish are stocked at densities typical of those used in commercial catfish culture. Whether this holds when fish are stocked at high densities is not known; thus, we conduc...

CD81, also known as the target of an antiproliferative antibody 1 (TAPA-1) in human, is a member of tetraspanin integral membrane protein family. This protein plays many important roles in immune and other physiological functions. In this report, we characterized and analyzed expression of the channel catfish CD81 transcript. The full-length of channel catfish CD81 cDNA comprised of 1130 nucleo...

The effect of the pesticide endosulfan on predator-prey interactions between catfish and Schistosoma host snails was assessed in static tank experiments. Hybrid catfish (Clarias gariepinus × C. ngamensis) and Bulinus globosus were subjected to various endosulfan concentrations including an untreated control. The 48- and 96-h LC50 values for catfish were 1.0 and <0.5 µg/L, respectively, whereas ...

Stream flow modifications, such as reduced spring flow and construction of low-head dams, have led to declines in the headwater catfish (Ictalurus lupus) across much of its range, as has competition with channel catfish (I. punctatus). Hybridization between headwater catfish and channel catfish also poses a threat to the headwater catfish. Our analyses of cytochrome-b sequences of headwater cat...

-FO~ the incised, sand-bed streams of northcentral Mississippi, USA, fish predation is one plausible mechanism to explain both relatively low crayfish densities and differences in stream size occupied by various native crayfishes. I conducted two mesocosm experiments to test effects of a fish predator (channel catfish, Ictalurus punctahls) on the survival and size structure of native crayfishes...