Genetically Improved Farmed Groupers (GIFG)

There always some inspiration when I look at salmon industry. The industry growing in a very focus way to improve its productivity, efficiency and reducing the effect of potential problems. a lot efforts has been done to perfect the industry in various aspects. One of it is the genetic improvement of the farmed salmon strains. Recent report by FishUpdate  dated January 31, 2011 mentioned on the progress of study in Infectious Pancreatic Necrosis (IPN) virus resistance gene in salmon. IPN virus is  a major killer for commercial salmon farming especially for young fishes all over the world.

The researchers from University of Edinburgh, Institute of Aquaculture at University of Stirling and geneticist from Landcatch Natural Selection Limited (LNS) in United Kingdom manage to find this gene. In 2008, they published the evidence of an IPN resistance gene which is beneficial to prevent death of salmon from IPN. For the first time in aquaculture, LNS used marker assisted selection, an advance form of selective breeding, to improve resistance to IPN in their commercial strains. Further study now going on to find the precise location of the gene in the salmon genome and to identify additional genetic markers closer to the resistance gene. These Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) markers used to select the IPN most resistant fish for breeding. Their works surely shown a way for researchers in grouper industry to apply such leading-edge genetic and genomic technology in grouper's genetic selective breeding to help farmers to get a better strain for fast growing, disease resistant and highly demanded grouper fishes.



Hybrid between female tiger grouper and
male giant grouper.

 So far, not much result of groupers genetic research available in this country or even from this region. However, I must pay my respect for the best work done by some researchers in cross breeding of Giant Grouper (E. lanceolatus ) and Tiger Grouper (E. fuscoguttatus). Although this finding was not based on the work at gene level, I would say it is seriously a good achievement and should deserve all the credits. The output of this hybridisation technique currently in high demand in the market, getting very good price and acceptance at the consumers level.

Tilapia nilotica: Original and modified to suit the
colour's preference of the oriental markets.
Photo: Mahmud Ismail 

Last few years, the tilapia farming got a boost from the introduction of Genetically Improved Farmed Tilapia (GIFT) which brought good results in term of growth rate and flesh recovery which helps thousands if not millions of farmers around the world. I love to see such development in grouper farming. Since we do have good example from other farmed species, the chances of duplicating such process to the grouper species seem to be very natural way of getting the fastest results, before more serious works take place. Off course the situation of tilapia culture seem to be more easier than groupers culture due to single species (Oreochromis niloticus) needed to look into in the case of GIFT.

Since early of this millennium, some researchers already emphasize the need for further research on genetic improvement for the grouper species. I flip through some papers presented in one workshop on grouper aquaculture back in 2002 ( you can download it free for your own leisure reading from Proceeding of Grouper Workshop) and found suggestion from one presenter that emphasize the need for genetic improvement of the cultured grouper species. In this region, I saw some works on genetic improvement for grouper have been carried out in neighboring country but actual result from the study still not yet being published.

Should we become one of the scientist studying the genetic improvement of the grouper species, what could be our priority to look into? Perhaps the fast growing gene in Mouse Grouper, low salinity tolerant gene in most of grouper species, VNN virus resistant gene or something like new hybrid between Giant Grouper with Coral Trout? As for me, most probably I will go for fast growing gene for Mouse Grouper and Coral Trout. Perhaps, I will produce another version of GIFT for these kind of groupers. Can we call it GIFG?