Prevalence of a protozoan parasite Perkinsus olseni in Manila clam Ruditapes philippinarum was surveyed from July to December 2009 on the west and south coast of Korea. P. olseni infection was diagnosed using two primer sets, P.olseni NTS Forward/P.olseni NTS Reverse set and PolsITS-140F/PolsITS-600R set in polymerase chain reaction(PCR). The results using PolsITS-140F and PolsITS-600R primer set was retained up to 60% at all stations from July to December, except for Padori. Especially, Goheung showed 100% prevalence from October to December. The results about comparison of the 4 station's DNA sequences which were analyzed from PCR products(457bp) using PolsITS-140F and PolsITS-600R primer set, there were only 2base differences at Sunjedo.

The epidemiological study was performed to survey the prevalence of fish pathogens in cultured olive flounder, Paralichthys olivaceus from 2005 to 2007. In this study, the fish pathogens were detected from 1,528 among 2,238 fish samples collected yearly in 5 sites from February, May, August and November. Annual incidences for three years show a yearly increase and there were 60.6% in 2005, 66.7% in 2006 and 72.3% in 2007, respectively. Seasonal prevalence was 63.5% in February, 67.4% in May, 75.1% in August and 64.4% in November for three years. The detection rates of 6 viral pathogens were 35.6% in 2005, 44.6% in 2006 and 24.4% in 2007 and the peak rate was 55.4% at adult size group (above 41cm). Viral nervous necrosis virus (24.7%) has been the most predominant virus in this investigation, while much lower rates were noted in viral haemorrhagic septicemia virus (10.6%) and red sea bream iridovirus (0.9%).

In May 2007, mass mortality of Israeli carp, Cyprinus carpio L., was occured on a pond farm located in Jeollabukdo Province, Korea. The mortality rates reached up to 2% of the total fish in the farm per day. Typical clinical signs were abdominal distension, reddish foci on the skin, enteritis, liver congestion and enlarged spleen and kidney. On the basis of biochemical characteristics and 16S rDNA sequence, the causative bacteria isolated from affected carp were identified as Aeromonas veronii. Histologically, degeneration of hepatocytes and congestion in sinusoids were observed in the liver. Spleen showed hemorrhage and the destruction of the sheathed tissues. In kidney, necrotized renal tubules and glomerular destructions were observed. Intestinal tissues revealed necrotized and severe hemorrhage. Mass hemorrhage was observed in muscles. This is the first report that A. veronii caused mortality in cultured Israeli carp in Korea.

The Interferon stimulated gene 15 (ISG15) is strongly induced in many cell types by IFNs, viral infections, and double-stranded RNA (poly I:C). The ISG15 homologue cDNA was isolated from the rock bream LPS stimulated leukocyte cDNA library. The rock bream ISG15 homologue was found to consist of 833 bp encoding 157 amino acid residues. Compared with other known ISG15 peptide sequences, the most conserved regions of the rock bream ISG15 peptide were found to be the tandem ubiquitin-like domains and a C-terminal LRLRGG conjugating motif, characteristic of mammalian and non-mammalian ISG15 proteins. Phylogenetic analysis based on the deduced amino acid sequence revealed a homologous relationship between the ISG15 sequence of rock bream and that of Atlantic salmon, Atlantic cod, northern snake head, black rockfish and olive flounder. The expression of the rock bream ISG15 molecule was induced in the peripheral blood leukocytes (PBLs) from 1 to 24 h following poly I:C stimulation, with a peak at 3 h post-stimulation. The rock bream ISG15 gene was predominantly expressed in the PBLs, spleen and gill.

Experiments were carried out to determine the hematological changes in olive flounder, Paralichthys olivaceus, after sub-chronic dietary pentachlorophenol (PCP) concentrations (0, 0.1, 0.5 and 1.0 mg/kg) exposure 6 weeks. The RBC count, Ht and Hb were significantly decreased in PCP 0.5 mg/kg exposed flounder compared to control group. The flounder exposed to PCP concentration 0.5 mg/kg started to increase significantly in serum magnesium concentrations after 4 weeks. The low concentration of serum calcium concentration was observed at 6 weeks of the experiment in PCP concentration 0.5 mg/kg. Although serum total protein concentrations was significantly reduced compared to the control group at PCP concentration 0.5 mg/kg, serum glucose concentration was found to be significantly increased over the control group. A significant increment of GOT, GPT and LDH activities in the flounder serum was noticed after 4 weeks at PCP concentrations over 0.5 mg/kg without typical changes of Al-P. These results indicate that flounder can be affected by PCP in terms of inorganic matter, organic matter and enzyme activity in serum when they were exposed to the PCP concentrations 0.5 mg/kg or higher.

This study was aimed to investigate the effects in different immersion doses of garlic, Allium sativum, juice to modulate on the nonspecific immune responses of the olive flounder, Paralichthys olivaceus, artificially prechallenged with Streptococcus iniae BS10 and Edwardsiella tarda KE-1, respectively. The nonspecific immune responses of the tested fish were assessed in term of skin mucus lysozyme activity, the change of bacterial cell counts in organs, the number of lymphocytes and neutrophils in blood, and SOD activity. Almost groups of the prechallenged with either S. iniae BS10 or E. tarda KE-1 fish which had been immersed in garlic juice showed the enhanced skin mucus lysozyme activity, the number of lymphocytes and neutrophils in blood, and SOD activity in the kidney but the decreased the number of bacterial cell in surveyed organs. RPS in the group immersed in 0.25 g/L of garlic juice was much higher than in other immersed test groups. These results suggested that the garlic juice immersion can be effective on enhancement of the nonspecific immune responses and the protective ability of olive flounder to the artificial challenge with S. iniae BS10 and E. tarda KE-1.

Specimens were collected from the coastal region near industrial complex of Ulsan-Onsan, Sihwa-Ansan and Yeosu-Gwangyang in 2008 and 2009. The total number of individuals used in analysis was 1,289 of Acanthogobius flavimanus, Chelon haematocheilus, Hemibarbus labeo, Leiognathus nuchalis, Mugil cephalus and Synechogobius hasta. The sex ratio in the total individual was 1:0.73 (female:male). Specific sex ratio of fishes in the areas, namely the Ulsan-Onsan, Sihwa-Ansan and Yeosu-Gwangyang were 1:0.79, 1:0.81, and 1:0.25, respectively. Especially, female in Yeosu-Gwangyang was higher than male. The intersexuality in the total individual was 11.7%. Intersexuality of fishes in the areas were 4.98, 14.39 and 25.0% in the Ulsan-Onsan, Sihwa-Ansan and Yeosu-Gwangyang, respectively. It was indicated female higher than male in Ulsan-Onsan and male higher than female in Sihwa-Ansan and Yeosu-Gwangyang.

Effects of temperature (, ) on the pharmacokinetic properties of oxolinic acid (OA) were studied after oral administration to cultured black rockfish, Sebastes schlegeli. Serum concentrations of OA were determined using HPLC-UV detector after a single dosage of 60 mg/kg body weight (average about 500 g). The peak serum concentrations of OA at and were at 30 h and at 10 h post-dose, respectively. Better absorption of OA was noted at compared to . The elimination of OA from serum was considerably faster at than at . Both absorption and elimination of OA were affected significantly by temperature. The kinetic profile of absorption, distribution and elimination of OA in serum was analyzed by fitting to a two compartment model, with WinNonlin program. The AUC, Tmax and Cmax at were , 26.13 h and , respectively. The AUC, Tmax and Cmax at were , 8.81 h and , respectively.

We constructed a rock bream (Oplegnathus fasciatus) liver cDNA library and a total of 1533 expressed sequence tag (EST) clones were generated. Gene annotation procedures and homology searches of the sequenced ESTs were analyzed using BLASTX. Of the 1533 EST clones, 1165 different ESTs showed significant homology to previously described genes while 368 ESTs were unidentified, hypothetical, or unnamed proteins. Encoding 106 different sequences were identified as putative bio-defense genes or genes associated with immune response.

Here, we have cloned and sequenced Streptococcus parauberis pgm gene, encoding the enzyme phosphoglucomutase (PGM), which is known to be in association with virulence in other streptococcal species. The PGM of S. parauberis is the most closely related to that of S. iniae based on their amino acid sequences.

Effects of heavy metal ions on the gene expression of cytochrome P4501A (CYP1A) were examined in cultured eel hepatocytes. When the expression of CYP1A mRNA was measured by RT-PCR after incubation of eel hepatocytes with benzo[]pyrene (B[]P) at concentrations of 10-8~10-5 M, the CYP1A expression increased with B[]P treatment in a dose dependent manner, showing significant increase at concentrations more than 10-7 M. When the eel hepatocyte was treated with cadmium (10-6 and 10-5 M), the expression of CYP1A was inhibited and especially at higher concentration (10-5 M). The inhibition of CYP1A expression by cadmium was also observed in cells treated with B[]P. In another study, effects of heavy metal ions on the expression of CYP1A were examined in cultured hepatocytes isolated from eel which was treated previously with B[]P in vivo. Hepatocytes isolated from the liver of eel taken at 48 hours after injection of B[]P (10 mg/kg) were cultured for 2 days with cadmium, copper, lead or zinc (10-6 and 10-5 M). The expression of CYP1A was found to be suppressed by the metal ions compared with the control in which CYP1A was induced with previous treatment of B[]P in vivo. The present results may provide an important basic information for studying the effects of heavy metal ions on CYP1A expression in other species of fish and studying toxicological mechanisms of heavy metal ions in aquatic livings.