BACKGROUND The channel catfish (Ictalurus punctatus), a species native to North America, is one of the most important commercial freshwater fish in the world, especially in the United States' aquaculture industry. Since its introduction into China in 1984, both cultivation area and yield of this species have been dramatically increased such that China is now the leading producer of channel catf...

—A 6-wk feeding study was conducted to determine the effect of feeding frequency on growth rate of juvenile Norris and NWAC103 channel catfish, Ictalurus punctatus, reared under laboratory conditions. Four replicate groups of Norris and NWAC103 catfish (average weight of 4.0 6 0.2 g/fish, SEM) were fed to visual satiety at different feeding frequencies (one, two, or three times daily). The perc...

—We related the length at age of channel catfish Ictalurus punctatus, an indirect measure of growth, to three climatic and five morphoedaphic variables in 144 Texas reservoirs. Growth of channel catfish ages 3 through 6 was negatively related to longitude, a factor that explained as much as 34% of the variation in length at age. Channel catfish length at age was not significantly related to lat...

Commercial feeds for aquaculture and catfish samples were collected from the Mekong River Delta, Vietnam, for determination of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and selected persistent organochlorines, including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), DDT and its metabolites (DDTs), chlordane-related compounds (CHLs), hexachlorocyclohexane isomers (HCHs), and hexachlorobenzene (HCB). The most ab...

Since 1991 the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has conducted annual surveys of pesticide residues in foods under the Agricultural Marketing Service's Pesticide Data Program (PDP). To assess chemical residues in domestically marketed catfish products, 1479 catfish samples were collected during the 2008-2010 PDPs. A subset of 202 samples was analysed for 17 toxic polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dio...

A 6-wk growth study was conducted comparing fingerling (mean weight = 24.7 g) USDA103 strain channel catfish Zctulunrspunctatus to Norris strain channel catfish in an effort to determine strain dmerences in growth and nutrient efficiency. Variability within strains also was assessed by randomly selecting four families from each strain for comparison. On average, USDA103 fish gained significantl...

A 6-wk growth study was conducted comparing fingerling (mean weight = 24.7 g) USDA103 strain channel catfish Zctulunrspunctatus to Norris strain channel catfish in an effort to determine strain dmerences in growth and nutrient efficiency. Variability within strains also was assessed by randomly selecting four families from each strain for comparison. On average, USDA103 fish gained significantl...

AIM To develop a method for conducting pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) on Flavobacterium columnare, to use PFGE to characterize F. columnare channel catfish isolates, and to determine whether variation in pathogenic potential exists in F. columnare isolates from channel catfish. METHODS AND RESULTS On the basis of PFGE-derived profiles, similarity dendrograms constructed for more than...

The pathogenicity of a Streptococcus ictaluri isolate in channel catfish Ictalurus punctatus at the fry (0.5 g), fingerling (15 g), and juvenile (55 g) stages was determined by experimental bath immersion and injection experiments. Channel catfish were exposed in 1-L immersion baths containing 10(8), 10(9), 10(10), 10(11) or 10(12) colony-forming units (cfu) of S. ictaluri. Fish were also injec...

To identify differentially expressed genes from channel catfish macrophages, a cDNA library from LPS-stimulated catfish macrophages was screened by subtractive hybridization. This screening yielded a 552-bp cDNA coding for catfish thioredoxin (CF-TRX). The deduced amino acid sequence revealed that CF-TRX contains 107 amino acids and is 59% homologous to human adult T cell leukemia-derived facto...