AQUA 2024

August 26 - 30, 2024

Copenhagen, Denmark

A PERSPECTIVE USES OF GENOME EDITING IN AQUACULTURE

Anna Wargelius1*, Erik Kjærner-Semb1, Marlen Rice1, Mari Raudstein1,  Hilal Güralp2, Fernanda Almeida1,3, Anne Hege Straume1, Rüdiger W. Schulz1, Eva Andersson1, Per Gunnar Fjelldal1, Diego Crespo1, Lene Kleppe1, Rolf B. Edvardsen1

1 Institute of Marine Research, Bergen, Norway

 2  University of South Bohemia in Ceské Budejovice, Czech Republic

 3 Embrapa, Manaus, Brazil

* Presenting author anna.wargelius@hi.no

 



 Aquaculture is the fastest growing food production sector and is becoming the primary source of seafood for human consumption. Selective breeding programs allow genetic improvement of production traits, such as disease resistance, but progress is  slow due to the often  limited heritability  and complex genetic composition of the traits a s well as long  generation intervals. New breeding technologies, such as genome editing using CRISPR/Cas9 have the potential to expedite genetic improvement  which can contribute to sustainable solutions  for aquaculture. Genome editing can rapidly introduce favorable changes to the genome, such as fixing alleles at existing trait loci, creating de novo alleles, or introducing alleles from other strains or species. The high fecundity and external fertilization of most aquaculture species, including Atlantic salmon can facilitate genome editing for research and application at a scale that is not possible in farmed terrestrial animals.  We have in this context used gene editing in  Atlantic salmon,  with the long- term aim to  address  major bottlenecks of the industry.  One  of these  is the genetic impact of escaped farmed salmon on wild populations, which is considered the most  relevant  long-term negative effect on the environment. The solution to this problem is the use of sterile fish . Here, we are working on methods for induced sterility involving gene editing. There are also sustainability issues associated with increased use of vegetable-based ingredients as replacements for marine products in fish feed, lowering the omega-3 content of the cultured fish.  This transition comes at the expense of the omega-3 content both in fish feed and the fish filet of the farmed fish. Reduced fish welfare represents another obstacle, and robust farmed fish is needed to avoid negative stress associated phenotypes such as cataract, bone and fin deformities, precocious maturity, and higher disease susceptibility. Gene editing could solve some of these problems as genetic traits can be altered to  create phenotypes of interest including disease resistance, sterility, and healthier fish fillets.