Mammalian CXC chemokines, named after a conserved pattern of conserved cysteine residues, have been initially identified as potent mediators of neutrophil chemotaxis [55, 56] and are also involved in chemotaxis of monocytes and lymphocytes. They have also been implicated in angiogenesis and, later, in a large variety of functions [57, 58] . In mammals, 16 CXC have been described. In Fish, however, several CXC have been identified but only CXCL12 and CXCL14 exhibit unambiguous orthologues [59] . In the present study, we showed that cxcl14 gene expression strongly increases during the preovulatory period. In catfish, RT-PCR data showed that cxcl14 gene was expressed in a wide variety of tissues, including the ovary [60] . In carp, quantitative PCR data showed that cxcl14 was predominantly expressed in the brain [61] . Despite its good conservation throughout vertebrate evolution [59] , the number of studies addressing the in vivo role(s) of CXCL14 is limited. As a consequence, a lot of information is still unavailable in fish. In a murine model used to study Crohn's disease, cxcl14 expression is induced during inflammation [62] . Together, these observations suggest that cxcl14 gene expression induction contributes to the inflammatory-like events occurring in the rainbow trout at the time of ovulation. To date the participation of this gene in preovulatory ovarian functions was unsuspected.