Growth Enhancement in Transgenic Atlantic Salmon by the Use of an “All Fish” Chimeric Growth Hormone Gene Construct

Abstract

We have developed an "all fish" growth hormone (GH) chimeric gene construct by using an antifreeze protein gene (AFP) promoter from ocean pout linked to a chinook salmon GH cDNA clone. After microinjection into fertilized, nonactivated Atlantic salmon eggs via the micropyle, transgenic Atlantic salmon were generated. The presence of the transgene was detected by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) using specific oligonucleotide primers. A number of these transgenic fish showed dramatic increases in their growth rate. At one year old, the average increase of the transgenic fish was 2 to 6 fold and the largest transgenic fish was 13 times that of the average non-transgenic control.

Growth and feed utilization by F4human growth hormone transgenic carp fed diets with different protein levels

“…The present study showed that the coefficient of variation of final weight was higher in the transgenic carp than in the controls. Large variations in body size or growth in transgenic fish were also reported in other studies (Du et al, 1992;Wei et al, 1992;Devlin et al, 1994). The results suggested that the integration and expression of foreign genes are different in different individuals of the transgenic fish.…”

“…Many investigators reported that the ‡Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: z.zhu@lily.whihb.ac.cn GH-transgenic fish exhibited higher growth rates than the controls (Zhu et al, 1986(Zhu et al, , 1989Chourrout et al, 1986;Dunhan et al, 1987;Rokkones et al, 1989;Zhang et al, 1990;Du et al, 1992). The most dramatic superfish was produced by Devlin et al (1994) who inserted an all-salmon gene construct (pOnMTGH1) into coho salmon Oncorhynchus kisutch (Walbaum).…”

Metabolism traits of ‘all-fish’ growth hormone transgenic common carp (Cyprinus carpio L.)

“…Stable lines of several species of transgenic fish have been generated, including growth-enhanced 'all-fish' GH transgenic common carp (Cyprinus carpio L.) in China (Wang et al, 2001), growthenhanced transgenic Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) in Canada (Du et al, 1992;Cook et al, 2000a), growth-enhanced transgenic coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) in Canada (Devlin et al, 1995), and growth-enhanced transgenic tilapia (Oreochromis sp.) in Britain and Cuba (Rahman et al 1998;Martinez et al, 1996).…”

Enhanced grass carp reovirus resistance of Mx-transgenic rare minnow (Gobiocypris rarus)

“…The linearized DNA fragment was purified using gel extraction kit (Axygen). After artificial insemination, about 1 nl of linearized recombinant plasmid (100 pg nl À1 ) was microinjected into rare minnow embryo at the 1-2 cell stage under a dissecting microscope with a micromanipulator [28][29][30]. The control group was injected with linearized pCMV-EGFP plasmid.…”