BioProject

Domestication of finfishes is a key element toward sustainable expansion of aquaculture sector. More...

Domestication of finfishes is a key element toward sustainable expansion of aquaculture sector. However, huge gap in knowledge on the mechanisms of adaptability of fish to the culture environment, being the first step toward successful domestication, exists. This affects the overall production capacity which is hindered, among others, by lowered reproductive capacity of domesticated stocks, including pikeperch – a highly valued commercial freshwater fish species. Transcriptomic profiling of embryos was found to be useful tool significantly contributing into understanding domestication process in aquaculture. Up to now there is no data on transcriptomic profiling of unfertilized eggs in any fish species as well as on pikeperch, in general. Using next generation sequencing the first complex transcriptome of pikeperch have been obtained (with 40,246 unique protein-coding genes). Next, specifically designed, pikeperch-specific microarrays (Agilent technologies) were developed (with 35,343 unique probes) and transcriptomic profiling of eggs coming from wild and domesticated populations (all characterized by high quality) was performed. From among 17,543 genes found to be expressed in eggs of pikeperch 710 were found to be differentially expressed. Functional, enrichment analysis revealed that the most enriched processes represented by the set of genes identified were developmental process, regulation of phosphorylation and nervous system development. The results of the present study provides a new insight into the processes being directly involved in the successful domestication of finfishes. It can be suggested that all the identified processes were pre-determined by the maternally derived set of genes contained already in the unfertilized eggs, what has never been reported to date. In addition to that, it has been shown for the first time that among the most important processes being affected by the domestication the post translation modifications of proteins along with development of the nervous system were identified. This allows to suggest that fish behavior should be considered as a very important trait for selection for aquaculture purposes in pikeperch. Overall design: transcriptomic profiling of eggs coming from wild and domesticated populations (all characterized by high quality) was performed. Less...