Alternative gene splicing in catfish after treatment with copper sulfate and exposure to Flavobacterium columnare

Authors: Abernathy, Jason; Lange, Miles; Farmer, Bradley; Beck, Benjamin; Straus, David - Dave

Submitted to: Genbank
Publication Type: Database / Dataset
Publication Acceptance Date: 9/23/2019
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Catfish farming remains number one among U.S. aquaculture production. Flavobacterium columnare, the causative agent of columnaris disease, produces substantial mortality during the production of freshwater farmed finfish species. F. columnare is ubiquitous in the aquatic environment, and outbreaks of disease are often triggered during the spring and summer months of the catfish production cycle. As food fish production continues to increase, the frequency of columnaris disease will only continue to rise within the aquaculture industry and thus new preventative measures will be required. Copper sulfate is the most common algaecide used in aquaculture. Copper sulfate has also been suggested as a therapeutant for columnaris disease, as we have previously discovered copper sulfate treatment effects the survivability and gill histology of channel catfish during an infection with F. columnare. Therefore to evaluate the functional effects of treatment with copper sulfate on columnaris disease, we performed RNA sequencing on gill samples from control and copper sulfate-treated catfish either immediately (more susceptible) or 24 hours after (more resistant) copper treatment followed by a challenge with F. columnare. Based on our functional analyses, we evaluated alternative splicing and differential exon usage over the time-course of infection with a focus on identifying significant gene products between treatment groups.