Oral administration of Fumagillin DCH protects chinook salmon Oncorhynchus tshawytscha from experimentally-induced proliferative kidney disease

Abstract

he antibiotic Fumagillin DCH was found to be effective in controlling experimental infections with PKX, the myxosporean that causes proliferative kidney disease (PKD) in salmonid fish. Following 6 or 7 wk of treatment, experimentally infected chinook salmon Oncorhynchus tshawytscha showed no evidence of PKX cells, or of the renal inflammation characteristic of PKD, on withdrawal of the treatment and tor up to 7 wk afterwards. In contrast, 90 to 100 % of fish (in 2 experiments) that were injected with PKX, but not glven the antibiotic, had numerous PKX cells in the kidney and developed clinical PKD. This is the first report of an effective orally administered drug for the control of a myxozoan infection in salmonid fish.