AQUA 2024

August 26 - 30, 2024

Copenhagen, Denmark

A NON-INVASIVE CHIP TOOL FOR DETECTION OF DISEASE-CAUSING ORGANISMS FROM WATER SAMPLES IN DANISH FISH AQUACULTURE

Louise von Gersdorff Jørgensen* ,  Helene Larsen, Hannah Malene Jensen,  Debes  Hammershaimb  Christiansen, Petra  Elisabeth  Petersen, Maria  Marjunardóttir  Dahl,  Moonika Haahr Marana,  Cyril Henard , Yajiao Duan

Section of Parasitology and Aquatic Pathobiology, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Frederiksberg C., Denmark . lvgj@sund.ku.dk

 



 When clinical disease in fish is discovered in production facilities, the fish are usually already very sick.  When possible, treatment is initiated immediately , but decreased welfare , increased mortality and economic loss is  nevertheless  often  a consequence . Therefore, prophylaxis and early detection of pathogens could present facility managers with the possibility to intervene prior to clinical outcome and severe disease .  We have developed a non-invasive Fluidigm chip tool based on  environmental DNA/RNA (collectively eNA )  from water samples for early detection and surveillance of 11 pathogens relevant for Danish aquaculture.  For three of the diseases, controlled experiments have been conducted correlating  the eNA levels in the water with  the disease status in the fish. Common for these experiments were that eNA revealed an elevation of the disease-causing organisms before clinical signs appeared , enabling early intervention before fish show clinical signs of disease (Fig. 1). Our tool can therefore be used to detect pathogens in the early phase, before disease becomes severe, facilitating interventions to limit disease and increase  the welfare of the fish, which is a requirement for sustainable animal production.