Abstract
A new epithelial cell line, Horabagrus brachysoma fin (HBF), was established from the caudal fin tissue of yellow catfish, H. brachysoma and characterized. This HBF cell line was maintained in Leibovitz's-15 medium supplemented with 15 % fetal bovine serum (FBS) and subcultured more than 62 times over a period of 20 months. The HBF cell line consists predominantly of epithelial cells and is able to grow at temperatures between 20 and 35 °C with an optimum temperature of 28 °C. The growth rate of these cells increased as the proportion of FBS increased from 5 to 20 % at 28 °C with optimum growth at the concentrations of 15 % FBS. Partial amplification and sequencing of fragments of two mitochondrial genes 16S rRNA and COI confirmed that HBF cell line originated from yellow catfish. The HBF cells showed strong positive reaction to the cytokeratin marker, indicating that it was epithelial in nature. HBF cell line was inoculated with tissue homogenate from juveniles of Sea bass, Lates calcarifer infected with viral nervous necrosis virus (VNNV) and found not susceptible to VNNV. The extracellular products of Vibrio cholerae MTCC 3904 were toxic to the HBF cells. These cells were confirmed for the absence of Mycoplasma sp by PCR.