The objective of this study is to provide information on metabolic changes occurring in Chinese sturgeon (an ecologically important endangered fish) subjected to repeated cycles of fatigue and recovery and the effect on swimming capability. Fatigue-recovery cycles likely occur when fish are moving through the fishways of large dams and the results of this investigation are important for fishway...

During teleost ontogeny the larval and embryonic stages are key stages, since failure during this period of tissue differentiation may cause malformations, developmental delays, poor growth, and massive mortalities. Despite the rapid advances in sequencing technologies, the molecular backgrounds of the development of economically important but endangered fish species like the Atlantic sturgeon ...

The in vitro effect of 17α, 20β-Dihydroxyprogesterone on the maturation of Persian sturgeon (Acipenser persicus) oocytes for 7, 10, 12, 24 and 30th hours of incubation were investigated. Blood serum, testosterone (T), progesterone (P4) and 17-β estradiol concentrations were measured using enzyme-linked immuno-sorbent assay (ELISA). The oocytes were incubated in SIS, RM2, L-15 and PSACF media in...

The effects of dietary phospholipids (PL) on the performance juvenile stellate sturgeon (Acipenser stellatus) was evaluated in terms growth and feed efficiency parameters, muscle liver fatty acid profiles, activity digestive antioxidative stress enzymes, expression lipoprotein lipase (lpl) insulin-like factor (igf1). For this purpose, seven isoproteic (44% crude protein) isolipidic (17% fat) di...

Acipenser stellatus is one of the most invaluable species of Sturgeon fishes in the world. The purpose of this study was to identify the resident microbial community from the gastrointestinal tract (GIT) of Acipenser stellatus. One hundred and twenty three fungi were isolated from the GIT of 7 Acipenser stellatus samples including Aspergillus spp (45.5%), Trichoderma spp (8.9%) and Cladophialop...

—During November 2002, 51 shovelnose sturgeon Scaphirhynchus platorynchus were sexed by ultrasound imaging using a portable ultrasonograph. We identified males with 96% accuracy (N 5 25) and females with 80% accuracy (N 5 25); one hermaphroditic individual was misidentified as a male. Overall, ultrasound imaging was 86% accurate. Sex in postspawned females was difficult to determine, 60% being ...

The aim of this study was to provide comprehensive insights into the genetic background of sturgeon by transcriptome study. We performed a de novo assembly of the Amur sturgeon Acipenser schrenckii transcriptome using Illumina Hiseq 2000 sequencing. A total of 148,817 non-redundant unigenes with base length of approximately 121,698,536 bp and ranges from 201 to 26,789 bp were obtained. All the ...

Little is known regarding molecular mechanisms involved in sex determination and differentiation in sturgeon species. We addressed this knowledge gap by using next generation pyrosequencing technology to provide transcript libraries and species-specific sequences for mature gonads of shovelnose sturgeon, Scaphirhynchus platorynchus. We then mined these libraries to identify gender-specific tran...

Broodstock selection programs are currently underway for sturgeon species. To complement and further these selection programs we need to develop sperm cryopreservation procedures. In the present study, we describe the effects of freezing rate (-10°C, -15°C, -20°C, -30°C and -40°C/min) on gamete quality characteristics (i.e., duration of motility (s), motility percentage (%), ATP content (nmol/1...

Characteristics of the in vitro propagation of the white sturgeon iridovirus (WSIV) were examined in 6 sturgeon cell lines. One new cell line originating from gonadal tissues (WSGO) produced up to 12-fold more WSIV [approximately 22 TCID50 (50% tissue culture infective dose) cell-1], than that of a previously established reference spleen cell line (WSS-2). Infected WSGO cell cultures were exami...