Clinical response of snakeheads ( Ophicephalus striatus) to experimental infection with snakehead fish rhabdovirus and snakehead cell line retrovirus

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Abstract Juvenile snakehead fish ( Ophicephalus striatus ) susceptible to epizootic ulcerative syndrome (EUS) were exposed to experimental infections with an EUS-associated rhabdovirus by intraperitoneal inoculation or bath challenge, and to a snakehead cell line derived retrovirus by intraperitoneal inoculation. Experimentally infected groups of fish were held under observation at ambient temperature for 4–25 days in either clean, laboratory groundwater or pond water obtained from a field site contemporaneously affected with EUS. No obvious lesions indicative of EUS developed in any of the infected fish in either aquatic environment over the observation period.