Aquaculture is one of the fastest developing agricultural industries worldwide. One of the most important factors for sustainable aquaculture is the development of high performing culture strains. Genome manipulation offers a powerful method to achieve rapid and directional breeding in fish. We review the history of fish breeding methods based on classical genome manipulation, including polyploidy breeding and nuclear transfer. Then, we discuss the advances and applications of fish directional breeding based on transgenic technology and recently developed genome editing technologies. These methods offer increased efficiency, precision and predictability in genetic improvement over traditional methods.
fish directional breeding, polyploidy breeding, nuclear transfer, transgenic fish, genome editing
Citation:Ye D, Zhu ZY, Sun YH. Fish genome manipulation and directional breeding. Sci China Life Sci, 2015Sci, , 58: 170 -177, doi: 10.1007 Fish are one of the most important sources of protein for humans. As a result of declines in wild fisheries, aquaculture has become one of the fastest developing agricultural industries worldwide [1]. To increase the sustainability of aquaculture, culturists commonly conduct selective breeding to develop strains that perform well in captivity. Unfortunately, the sustainability of many sectors of the industry is negatively affected by inbreeding depression, disease outbreaks, under production, and low meat quality [2]. To address these issues, there is an urgent need for the development of high quality fish strains that have high growth rates, disease-resistance, and/or higher nutritional value.Traditional crossbreeding methods such as intra-species crossbreeding [3] and inter-species hybridization [4] have been successfully used for several decades. However, crossbreeding requires multiple-generations of hybridization to introduce a desirable trait to a given strain. Additionally, the outcomes of these methods are unpredictable because the underlying mechanisms controlling desirable traits are unknown. Thus, there is a need to develop more efficient, precise and predictable techniques for producing production scale numbers of high-quality fish. We review the history of fish breeding methods based on classical genome manipulation approaches, including polyploidy breeding [5] and nuclear transfer [6]. Then, we discuss directional breeding of fish based on transgenic technology and recently developed genome editing technologies. Advances in breeding methodology based on classical genome manipulation and recently developed genome editing methods will likely play a major role in the future of genetic breeding in fish.