the aim of our study was to evaluate the effects of chitosan as immune stimulator on some hematological parameters and stress resistance in rainbow trout. nine hundred rainbow trout (with initial body weight of 25 ± 0.1 g) were obtained from a local farm and acclimated to the laboratory conditions for one week. after that fish were randomly divided into four groups in three replicates. each gro...

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of heavy metals, at environmentally relevant concentrations, on the immune response of rainbow trout. Trout were exposed for 30 d to cadmium chloride (CdCl2), mercuric chloride (HgCl2), or zinc chloride (ZnCl2) either individually or in combinations: CdCl2/HgCl2, CdCl2/ZnCl2, HgCl2/ZnCl2, or CdCl2/HgCl2/ZnCl2. Following the 30-d exposure, p...

The trichothecene mycotoxin deoxynivalenol (DON) is commonly found as a natural contaminant in cereals such as wheat, barley, and corn, and exhibits various toxicological effects when present in animal feeds. The effects of DON at a nominal 2 mg/kg feed on immune responses of rainbow trout were investigated, including relative gene expression of important cytokines (TNF-α, IL-8, IL-1β, IL-10), ...

Discocotyle sagittata oncomiracidia were rapidly killed when incubated in naïve plasma and immune sera from both rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) and brown trout (Salmo trutta), the killing proceeding at a faster rate with blood material from the latter fish species. The lethal activity of naïve plasma and immune sera was comparable. This was abolished after incubation at 45 degrees C for 30...

The rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) is one of the most widely used fish species in aquaculture and physiological research. In the present paper, we report the first cloning, 3D (three-dimensional) modelling, pharmacological characterization and tissue distribution of two melanocortin (MC) receptors in rainbow trout. Phylogenetic analysis indicates that these receptors are orthologues of the...

Stem bark of Acacia nilotica, Delbergia sissoo, Delonix regia, Polyalthia longifolia, Prosopis cineraria, and Zyziphus mauritiana, and leaves of Catharanthus roseus, Mentha arvensis, Murraya koinigii, Ocimum basilicum, Tabernaemontana divaricata, Tinospora cordifolia and Tribulus terrestris were analyzed for their total phenolic and flavonois content as well as antioxidant activity. Stem bark o...

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) such as benzo[a]pyrene (BaP) are immunotoxic to fish. Metabolism of PAHs in immune cells has been implicated in PAH immunotoxicity in mammals, but for fish the presence of metabolic enzymes in immune cells is less clear. The objective of this study was to examine localization and induction of the BaP-metabolizing biotransformation enzyme, cytochrome P4501...

Gut-associated lymphocytes were described in fish, but their involvement in immune responses is still unknown. In rainbow trout, intraepithelial lymphocytes (IELs) are scattered between gut epithelial cells, but neither Peyer's patches nor mesenteric lymph nodes were identified. Rainbow trout IELs contain mainly T cells, because they expressed transcripts of T cell marker homologs of CD8, CD4, ...

Laboratory and in-stream enclosure experiments were used to determine whether rainbow trout Oncorhynchus mykiss influence survival of longnose dace Rhinichthys cataractae. In the laboratory, adult rainbow trout preyed on longnose dace in 42% of trials and juvenile rainbow trout did not prey on longnose dace during the first 6 h after rainbow trout introduction. Survival of longnose dace did not...