Triangle sail mussel (Hyriopsis cumingii) is the most important mussel species commercially exploited for freshwater pearl culture in China. Its genetic diversity was studied among populations from the five largest freshwater lakes of China, Poyang Lake (PY), Dongting Lake (DT), Taihu Lake (TH), Hongze Lake (HZ), and Chaohu Lake (CH), by the polymorphism of the inter-simple sequence repeats (ISSRs). Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) detections showed that a total of 62 loci were amplified from eight primers; of those, 31.88%, 31.15%, 31.03%, 27.27% and 26.92%, respectively, were polymorphic in each of the five populations across all genotypes tested. The average heterozygosities were 0.4747, 0.3274, 0.2366, 0.2099 and 0.2018 in each of these populations from PY, TH, DT, CH and HZ, respectively. Phylogenic analyses showed that PY and TH populations clustered with CH and HZ and formed a group, while the DT population on its own formed a separated branch. The smallest distance (0.0404) was scored between PY and TH populations, indicative of their closest relationship; the biggest distance (0.2438) was found between PY and DT populations, suggesting their greatest divergence. The present study provided genetic basis for managing mussel stocks from these lakes separately to best preserve the genetic diversity of H. cumingii. On the other hand, since the population in PY displayed the highest genetic diversity, it may be used preferably in future selective breeding to improve pearl yield and quality.

Extracellular superoxide dismutase (SOD3) is a major antioxidant enzyme that protects organs from damage by reactive oxygen species (ROS). In this study, the SOD3 gene was identified and characterized from the freshwater mussel Hyriopsis cumingii (Hc-SOD3). The cDNA sequence consists of 763 bp, encoding a protein of 208 amino acids. The amino acid sequence possesses two CuZnSOD signature sequences, and amino acids required for binding of Cu (His-93, -95, -110 and -169) and Zn (His-110, -118, -129 and Asp-132) were conserved in Hc-SOD3. The Hc-SOD3 genomic sequence was 9165 bp in length, containing four exons and three introns. Eighteen single nucleotide polymorphisms were detected in the Hc-SOD3 gene from resistant stock (RS) and susceptible stock (SS) of H. cumingii to Aeromonas hydrophila. The genotype and allele distribution were examined in resistant and susceptible stocks. Among them, a C/G substitution at the g.7994C>G locus and G/C substitution at the g.8087G>C locus were significantly associated with resistance/susceptibility of H. cumingii to A. hydrophila, both in genotype (P = 0.017, P = 0.004 respectively) and allele frequency (P = 0.021, P = 0.006 respectively). Linkage disequilibrium analysis revealed that g.7994C>G, g.8001A>G, g.8035G>A, g.8087G>C and g.8191T>A were in linkage disequilibrium. The results suggest that the two polymorphic loci, g.7994C>G and g.8087G>C, could be potential genetic markers for future molecular selection of strains that are resistant to diseases.