Claudins are one of the major groups of transmembrane proteins that play crucial roles in tight junctions. In addition to their function in the regulation of paracellular permeability, claudins are also involved in a number of biological processes related to pathogen infection, embryonic development, organ development and hypoxia response. Despite its importance, analyses of claudin genes in ch...

The effects of sex steroids on spermatogenesis and testicular androgen secretion were studied in juvenile (spermatogonia present in testes) African catfish. Fish were implanted with Silastic pellets containing 11-ketotestosterone (KT), 11β-hydroxyandrostenedione (OHA), androstenetrione (OA), androstenedione (A), testosterone (T), 5α-dihydrotestosterone (DHT), or estradiol-17β (E2). Control grou...

Flavobacterium columnare is a Gram-negative pathogen of many species of wild and cultured fish. Isolates from diseased channel catfish belong to either genomovar I or II. Genomovar II isolates were found to be more virulent than genomovar I isolates. The objective of the present study was to determine whether differences exist in the chemotactic response of these genomovars to mucus obtained fr...

Two little-known nematode species of the genus Spinitectus Fourment, 1883, S. petrowi Belous, 1965 (prevalence 25%, intensity 1-8) and S. gigi Fujita, 1927 (prevalence 10%, intensity 2-3), were collected from the gastrointestinal tract of the yellow catfish, Pelteobagrus fulvidraco (Richardson), from Liangzihu Lake, Hubei Province, central China, in September of 2002. The light and scanning ele...

Pansteatitis was confirmed in sharptooth catfish, Clarias gariepinus (Burchell), from three main locations within the Kruger National Park (KNP); the Olifants River Gorge, Engelhard Dam on the Letaba River and from the Sabie River in the Sabiepoort. An increasing prevalence of pansteatitis was observed in catfish during repeated samplings from the Olifants Gorge from 2009 to 2011 and co-exi...

Two pond experiments were conducted to evaluate cottonseed meal (CSM), distiller’s dried grains with solubles (DDGS), and supplemental lysine as replacements for soybean meal (SBM) in channel catfish diets. In Experiment 1, fish fed diets in which SBM was totally replaced with CSM gained similar weight as fish fed control diet, but fish fed CSM diet in Experiment 2 had 9.5% lower weight gain th...

—In two coastal North Carolina rivers (Contentnea Creek and the Northeast Cape Fear River), we found the food habits of introduced flathead catfish Pylodictis olivaris to be primarily piscivorous, which could restructure or suppress native fish communities through direct predation. Fish or crayfish contributed more than 50% of the stomach contents by percent occurrence, percent by number, and p...

A new species of the catfish genus Trichomycterus is described from Rio Paraíba do Sul, south-eastern Brazil. This exhibits some morphological character states that are unique amongst congeners, including a robust opercle and long interopercle with numerous odontodes (50–60 opercular 90–100 interopercular), black bar on basal portion caudal fin dark brown flank well delimited dorsal yellow stri...

The retinas of certain catfish contain multiple optic discs. This report describes the patterns of optic nerve fibers and optic discs as seen in silver-stained flat mounts, in 11 different families of catfish. As many as 50 optic discs may exist in a single retina, in paired and unpaired combinations, and in slit and ring-like arrays.