Townsville researchers have mapped the complete genome of the Australian black tiger prawn in the first ever successful sequencing project of the species.
James Cook University (JCU) researchers took part in the groundbreaking project, which will aid bigger and more disease resistant farm stock in the future.
JCU professor of aquaculture and research participant, Dean Jerry, said the black tiger prawn is northern Australia's biggest aquaculture industry.
"It is a species which has a huge potential here in the north to address some of the food security issues around the globe, as well as supply high quality seafood to Australia," he said.
"It is a species that has only recently been domesticated for farming.
"Before this project it didn't have a lot of those genetic and genomic resources that are useful for us in a selective breeding context, like we do find in livestock and plant species, which have been domesticated and farmed for thousands of years."
Professor Jerry said the project will assist the aquaculture industry in studying growth and disease resistance of the crustacean.
"The project was essentially to develop all the genomic and genetic tools to allow the industry to do advanced selective breeding programs for the species focused on growth and disease resistance," he said.
"The genome is a very important resource to have for any livestock or aquaculture species because it really is the blueprint for how the animal will grow and respond to its environment and challenges that it faces.
"Also how it may respond to disease."
The genome sequence project took six years to complete.
"We set out very aspirationally to sequence this genome and produce a complete genome assembly," Professor Jerry said.
"We now know all the sequences and how they relate to each other in the black tiger prawn species.
"The genome is about two-thirds the size of the human genome and it is one of the most complex genomes on the planet."
The research came out of the ARC Industrial Transformation Research Hub for Advanced Breeding.
A joint collaboration between JCU, the Australian Genome Research Facility (AGRF), the University of Sydney, CSIRO and Seafarms Group.
The partnership aimed to improve productivity and efficiency of farming prawns through the use of genetic selection.
AGRF bioinformatics manager, Dr Kenneth Chan, said the genetic mapping process to reconstruct the genome of the black tiger prawn was complex.
"Imagine the task of putting together a 1.9 billion piece double-sided puzzle with no borders, long repeated overlapping sections, millions of missing pieces, multiple pieces that can fit in the same place, no picture on the box to follow, and possibly lots of pieces from another unrelated puzzle," said Dr Chan.
Dr Nick Wade, senior research scientist with CSIRO, said how the tiger prawn fought viral infections (known as the Endogenous Viral Element or EVE) was unique to the species.
"No EVE found in any other animal looks like this," Dr Wade said.
"Discovery of this EVE allows for further research into understanding how prawns deal with infections by viruses and perhaps into new therapies that can be applied to make prawns more resistant to viral diseases."
Facing disease challenges similar to livestock species and plant production, Professor Jerry said the aquaculture industry can now utilise more targeted and selective practices for disease tolerance with the genome providing an invaluable resource for the industry to increase the productivity and sustainability.
"It will allow the industry to select for fast growth, good consumer attributes, and most importantly, disease tolerance under change in environmental conditions," Professor Jerry said.
"It allows us to see how genes are responding to different environmental cues and we can actually then use that information to select for animals, which are more tolerant and resilient to change in environment."
Professor Jerry said the project will allow Australia to continue to be a major producer of high quality seafood - particularly northern Australia where the species is predominately farmed.
"It is rapidly becoming one of our major primary industries related to food," he said.
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