Columnaris disease can affect nearly all freshwater fish species and causes millions of dollars in annual losses in the catfish industry alone.
To combat this, Auburn researchers will use an almost $321,000 U.S. Department of Agriculture grant to field-test a novel vaccine that would effectively and economically control the bacterial infection.
The sole columnaris vaccine currently available is only moderately effective, but Auburn University researchers have been working on an improved immunization using bacteria derived from a highly virulent strain of the disease.
The experimental vaccine developed and patented by Cova Arias, professor in Auburn’s School of Fisheries, Aquaculture and Aquatic Sciences has outperformed the currently available vaccine in lab tests.
“At this point in our research, we need data on a larger scale to successfully commercialize the vaccine,” Arias said. “We will use this most recent grant to fill our gap in information.”
Arias was awarded the competitive grant in November through the Aquaculture Research Program, which is administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, or NIFA.
The research program funds projects that support the development of environmentally and economically sustainable aquaculture in the U.S.
Arias explained that Columnaris is caused by the bacterium Flavobacterium columnare and affects a number of warmwater species.
“If you’ve ever had a goldfish to die, it probably died from this disease,” Arias said. “It affects ornamental species, catfish, tilapia and trout, and it is distributed worldwide.”
For catfish farmers, fish diseases can be economically devastating, and columnaris bacteria is one of the three main disease-causing pathogens.
“In some years, columnaris is the No. 1 disease problem in catfish production, and in other years, it’s No. 2, depending on the individual farm and the season,” Arias said. “In hatcheries, disease can kill 90 to 100 percent of the fish. When fish are sick and fighting a pathogen, they won’t eat properly, so an effective vaccine can increase survival and growth performance.”
The Auburn vaccine has outperformed the commercial vaccine in all experiments conducted to date, reducing cumulative mortality two to four times better than the existing vaccine. In vaccine trials of Nile tilapia and catfish, the vaccine increased survival rates by 66 and 17 percent, respectively, over the currently available vaccine.
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