The genes regulate teleost fish barbel development. Ictalurus punctatus, Ageneiosus marmoratus

In this project, we generated the whole genome sequences of the bottlenose catfish (Ageneiosus marmoratus), a barbelless catfish. The opportunity lies in conducting comparative subtraction of gene contents from barbel-possessing and barbelless fish species. The genome level analysis, when coupled with transcriptome level analysis of differentially-expressed genes during barbel regeneration allow identification of both genes involved in barbel development and the key regulators of barbel formation and regeneration.