The first transgenic animal to be produced was a mouse (Palmiter, Brinster and Hammer, 1982). The first recorded instances of production of transgenics in aquatic species are those of Maclean and Talwar (1984) in rainbow trout and Zhu et al. (1985) in goldfish. Since then many species have been used to produce GMOs as shown in Table 1. The list represents an amalgam of species significant in aquaculture with species amenable to laboratory culture and with short life cycles used particularly for studies of gene action, studies which of course form the platform for better understanding and hence better production in aquaculture.
Table 1. Aquatic species in which GMOs have been induced
|
Common name |
Latin name |
Number of constructs employed to generate transgenics |
|
Fish |
|
|
|
Atlantic salmon |
Salmo salar |
6 |
|
Coho salmon |
Oncorhynchus kisutch |
4 |
|
Chinook salmon |
Oncorhynchus tshawytscha |
3 |
|
Tilapia |
Oreochromis spp. |
12 |
|
Medaka |
Oryzias latipes |
17 |
|
Zebra fish |
Brachydanio rerio |
14 |
|
Common carp |
Cyprinus carpio |
14 |
|
Channel catfish |
Ictalurus punctatus |
9 |
|
African catfish |
Clarias gariepinus |
1 |
|
Rainbow trout |
Oncorhyncus mykiss |
7 |
|
Cutthroat trout |
Oncorhyncus clarki |
1 |
|
Goldfish |
Carrassius auratus |
5 |
|
Northern pike |
Esox lucius |
2 |
|
Loach |
Misgurnus anguillicaudatus |
2 |
|
Sea bream |
Sparus aurata |
2 |
|
Red Sea Bream |
Pagrus major |
1 |
|
Blunt snout bream |
Megalobrama amblycephala |
1 |
|
Nigorobuna |
Carrassius auratus grandoculis |
1 |
|
Walleye |
Stizostedion vitreum |
1 |
|
Others |
|
|
|
Brine shrimp |
Artemia franciscana |
1 |
|
Seaweed |
Laminaria japonica |
1 |
|
|
Undaria pinnatifida |
|
|
Sea Urchin |
Strongylocentrotus purpuratus |
1 |
|
|
Paracentrotus lividus |
|
|
|
Arbacia lixula |
|
|
Abalone |
Haliotus rufescens |
1 |
It is clear that Atlantic and coho salmon, tilapia species, catfish, medaka and zebrafish dominate in terms of numbers. Of these fish groups three are very important in aquaculture.
