Age-related reproductive performance and transcriptome profiling of testis in male blue catfish, Ictalurus furcatus

Authors: BUTTS, IAN - Auburn University; Abernathy, Jason; SANKAPPA, NITHIN MULIYA - Orise Fellow; LIYANAGE, SAMITHA - Auburn University

Submitted to: NIH Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) Database
Publication Type: Database / Dataset
Publication Acceptance Date: 3/4/2025
Publication Date: 3/17/2025
Citation: Butts, I., Abernathy, J.W., Sankappa, N., Liyanage, S. 2025. Age-related reproductive performance and transcriptome profiling of testis in male blue catfish, Ictalurus furcatus. NIH Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) Database. GSE290987.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Catfish farming is the largest aquaculture industry in the U.S., where hybrid catfish produced by channel catfish, Ictalurus punctatus females × blue catfish, I. furcatus males, represent >50% of the harvest. Typically, older blue catfish (= 5 years) are selected for artificial fertilization. However, observations at our facilities and reports from hatcheries indicate a high degree of variation in reproductive performance among individuals. Thus, it is essential to establish links between paternal age and reproductive success, as it is apparent that advanced paternal age leads to changes in reproductive performance. Since there are no prior studies regarding the changes in testis transcriptome in blue catfish males during aging, we evaluated global gene expression of testis at 2,4,7 and 9 years of age. Significant differential expressed genes and gene ontology of pairwise comparisons between age 2 and each test age were identified. These datasets (raw sequencing files, processed data files, and metadata) have been submitted to the NCBI Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) and can be found under the accession #GSE290987.