The rapid growth of aquaculture has provided opportunities for the emergence of diseases. Programs designed to monitor these pathogens are useful for analysis of regional variation and trends, provided methods are standardized. Data from an official monitoring program were used to analyze the emergence of infectious pancreatic necrosis virus in Scottish salmon farms from 1996 to 2001. An annual...

Title of dissertation: FUNCTIONAL STUDIES OF INFECTIOUS PANCREATIC NECROSIS VIRUS PROTEINS AND MECHANISM OF VIRUS-INDUCED APOPTOSIS Haichen Song, Doctor of Philosophy, 2003 Dissertation directed by: Professor Vikram N. Vakharia Center for Biosystems Research, and VA-MD Regional College of Veterinary Medicine Infectious pancreatic necrosis virus (IPNV) encodes a 12 or 15-kDa nonstructural protei...

The effects of Corexit 9500, a dispersant used to clean up oil spills, on invertebrates, lower vertebrates, birds, and human health have been examined, but there is a significant lack of study of the effect of this dispersant on aquatic viruses. In this study, the effects of Corexit 9500 on four aquatic viruses of differing structural composition were examined. Corexit 9500 reduced the titer of...

Several microbial disease outbreaks in farm stocks of newly cultured sparid fish species, such as common seabream, redbanded seabream, and white seabream, were recorded from 2004 to 2006. This study describes the isolation and characterization of the potential causative agents, either bacteria or viruses, of these outbreaks. The isolated bacterial strains were characterized according to traditi...

Ribavirin (1-beta-D-ribofuranosyl-1,2,4-triazole-3-carboxamide) at concentrations of 10 microgram/ml or more, inhibited the replication of infectious pancreatic necrosis virus (IPNV) in both Chinook salmon embryo (CHSE-214) and rainbow trout gonad (RTG-2) cells. The drug was most effective when added just before or within 8 h p.i. Incorporation studies with radioactive precursors demonstrated t...

A staphylococcal coagglutination test was developed for the rapid detection of infectious hematopoietic necrosis virus (IHNV) in cell cultures and infected fish. The test could be completed in 15 min but required a minimum IHNV titer of 10(6) PFU/ml to obtain a positive reaction. All IHNV isolates, representing the five electropherotypes taken from a wide variety of species and different geogra...

By the use of strong denaturing agents, a genome-linked protein (VPg)-RNA complex was purified from infectious pancreatic necrosis virus. Ribonuclease treatment of 125I-labelled VPg-RNA released a 90K polypeptide identical to the minor structural polypeptide VP1 (the putative RNA polymerase), as determined by peptide mapping. The polypeptide is linked to the RNA by a serine-5' GMP phosphodieste...

This study describes the development and partial characterization of a continuous fibroblastic-like cell line (BEF-1) developed from late stage embryos of North American burbot Lota lota maculosa. This cell line has been maintained for over 5 yr and 100 passages in vitro. Cells were cultured using Eagle's minimum essential medium with Earle's salts (MEM) supplemented with GlutaMAX, and 10% feta...