Bigger, stronger, better: Fish transgenesis applications and methods

Abstract

Transgenesis has been applied to several species to benefit from them in different fields. As natural fish stocks decline and the world population increase, the application of transgenesis on commercial fish species takes more attention to reduce the limitations of aquaculture and meet the increasing food demand. Transgenesis has been applied to obtain a stable transgenic line with improved traits to date. In aquaculture, growth rate, cold resistance, and disease resistance of commercial fish species were enhanced by transgenesis and even one of them, AquAdvantage Salmon, took place markets in the North America. Also, transgenic fish were developed to evaluate the health impacts of chemicals in ecotoxicology and provide more options with new color variants in ornamental fisheries. Different approaches for generating transgenic fish have been performed successfully, but they still require some developments. More transgenic fish could take place in the market by developing more efficient techniques and informing consumers about these techniques to reduce their concerns. This review discusses the application fields of transgenic fish with examples and provides an overview of gene delivery techniques and transgenesis methods.

Comparison of two methods of sperm‐ and testis‐mediated gene transfer in production of transgenic animals: A systematic review

“…The variety of SMGT hosts reveals the flexibility of this method in sperm‐mediated delivery of foreign DNA into zygotes of a wide range of species, using in vitro fertilization or ICSI. For small animals such as insects, SMGT may be the only viable method, while in the case of externally fertilized animals such as fish, in which sperm are more available and resistant to environmental conditions, SMGT is more accessible and completely reasonable compared to TMGT (Cebeci et al., 2020; Zhou et al., 2012). Mice and rats are the most commonly used species in both SMGT and TMGT studies.…”

Revolutionizing aquaculture: Exploring the diverse applications of biotechnology for sustainable growth and enhanced productivity

“…Transgenic fishes can be used as biosensor to monitor the presence of toxic chemicals detectable to very minute concentrations (Cebeci, 2020) [3] . Transgenic lines of fishes used in the field of ecotoxicology are developed by integrating a reporter gene with a DNA response element that can be stimulated by the presence of certain toxic chemicals or pollutant.…”

“…Transgenesis is the technique of developing genetically modified organisms by making heritable changes to the host genome by integration of exogenous DNA (transgene) into the host genomic DNA (Cebeci, 2020) [3] . Transgenesis is a novel method of incorporating desirable genetic traits and improvement of character of economic interest in fish for more profitable and sustainable aquaculture.…”

“…Transgenesis is a novel method of incorporating desirable genetic traits and improvement of character of economic interest in fish for more profitable and sustainable aquaculture. Transgenesis finds its application through various genetic improvements in terms of growth enhancement, cold tolerance, disease resistant, production of ornamental fishes and use of transgenics in environment monitoring has been achieved contributing significantly to aquaculture (Cebeci, 2020) [3] . Hence considering the rising global population, transgenesis can be considered as a boon to the aquaculture to address the malnutrition and nutritional gap.…”

Breeding studies on red sea bream Pagrus major: mass selection to genome editing

“…Gene manipulation is a method that can be used for rapid breeding with great effect. Over the past 30 years, within genetic manipulation, transgenesis has been studied in a wide variety of fish species and traits (e.g., Osmond and Colombo 2019;Cebeci et al 2020; Chen and Chen 2020), starting with the addition of economically useful traits to fish, such as growth enhancement (Zhang et al 1990), cold tolerance (Hew et al 1992), and disease resistance (Sarmasik et al 2002). Methods of transgenesis in fish include microinjection (Meng et al 1999;Tanaka and Kinoshita 2001), electroporation (Inoue et al 1990), use of a retroviral vector (Lu et al 1997), and particle guns (Kinoshita et al 2003;Yazawa et al 2005).…”