The potential impact of modern biotechnology on fish aquaculture

Abstract

The introduction of molecular techniques in addition to the more traditional methods of biotechnology has supplied the resources to increase significantly production in world aquaculture. The ability to identify relevant genes endowing the phenotype of interest has certainly been helped by the ever-expanding databases, which have benefited not only from the various genome projects, but also from contemporary approaches such as the DNA chip, improved 2-D gel resolution and high throughput mass spectrometers. This, combined with improvements in transgenic technologies, has opened up vast possibilities to the aquacultural biotechnologist which include improving growth rates and cost-effectiveness, increasing resistance to pathogens and stressors, improving quality of broodstock and also creating the opportunity of making new or different products through altering their genetic make up. The platform technologies relevant to this field of functional genomics will be discussed in the context of applications beneficial to the field of aquaculture, while examples including those from our own research will be described. © 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.