Our previous studies of both microarray analysis in channel catfish muscle gene expression of 2 different ages and channel catfish muscle expressed sequence tag profiles demonstrated parvalbumin beta is one of the highly expressed muscle transcriptome. We have cloned and sequenced complementary DNA encoding the channel catfish parvalbumin which encode 109 amino acids. The deduced amino acid sequences of the catfish parvalbumin are highly conserved with those cloned from other teleosts. The availability of the catfish parvalbumin provides the opportunity of studying fish epitopes.