Details of Award
NERC Reference : NE/P010695/1
Application of genetic markers to improve resistance to herpes virus in commercial oyster populations
Grant Award
- Principal Investigator:
- Professor R Houston, University of Edinburgh, The Roslin Institute
- Grant held at:
- University of Edinburgh, The Roslin Institute
- Science Area:
- Marine
- Overall Classification:
- Unknown
- ENRIs:
- Biodiversity
- Environmental Risks and Hazards
- Global Change
- Natural Resource Management
- Pollution and Waste
- Science Topics:
- Aquaculture
- Agricultural systems
- Animal diseases
- Viral diseases (animals)
- Animal breeding
- Livestock production
- Abstract:
- Background: Pacific oyster (C. gigas) is one of the most important aquaculture species in the world, but sustainable production is threatened by outbreaks of Oyster herpes virus (OsHV), which can cause high mortality rates. There is substantial host genetic variation in resistance within farmed stocks. Therefore, improvement of survival rates via selective breeding has the potential to form a major component of disease control. However, UK oyster production does not yet have the capacity to produce more resistant stocks, because structured selective breeding schemes for shellfish do not exist. As part of an ongoing BBSRC-NERC sustainable aquaculture award, the Roslin Institute, Cefas and Edinburgh Genomics have developed the first high density single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) array for oysters. In parallel, a laboratory virus challenge experiment has been successfully performed. The resistant and susceptible oysters from this trial are being genotyped to map resistance loci in the oyster genome. The major practical outcome will be SNP markers that can predict which oysters are resistant to the disease. Project Partners and Challenges: The lack of selective breeding for shellfish in the UK presents significant challenges (and opportunities) for UK production; namely (1 - short term) to identify and breed from parent oysters with high resistance to OsHV-1, and (2 - long term) to move towards well-managed selective breeding of oysters to harness genetic variation to improve key traits. The Roslin institute will work with Cefas and UK oyster hatcheries Guersey Sea Farms Ltd and Seasalter Shellfish Ltd to address these challenges. They will also work with the Cawthron Institute (New Zealand), who are world leaders in shellfish breeding and reproduction, but do not yet apply modern genomic tools in their breeding programmes. The project directly contributes to the themes of the call relating to "Breeding and genetics approaches for stock enhancement" and "Monitoring and control of health and disease". Aims and Objectives: The primary aim of this project is to apply genetic markers to breed oysters with improved resistance to oyster herpes virus in the farm environment. The specific objectives of the proposed project are: (i) To verify SNP markers associated with OsHV resistance using samples and data from commercial oyster populations during field outbreaks. (ii) To establish a process within a commercial hatchery for marker-assisted selection for resistance using parental oysters. (iii) To test genomic prediction of breeding values for OsHV resistance in an oyster population with pedigree and trait records. (iv) To determine the most (cost) effective method of using genetic markers in oyster breeding to improve disease resistance. Project Outputs and Impacts: The project team will work closely with commercial partners to deliver tangible outputs that will help address the aforementioned challenges. Testing of SNP markers of resistance in field outbreaks in independent populations to the discovery population will enable a genetic test for OsHV resistance to be created. This will be applied to the oyster aquaculture industry by working with commercial hatchery partners, and developing a system to genotype parent oysters for marker-assisted selection. Concurrently, the utility of genomic prediction (use of genome-wide markers to predict breeding values) will be assessed at different marker densities. This will result in a report on the most (cost) effective means of using genetic markers to breed for disease resistance in oysters. Project Duration and Cost: The project will last 24 months and will have a total cost of #199,741.
- NERC Reference:
- NE/P010695/1
- Grant Stage:
- Completed
- Scheme:
- Innovation
- Grant Status:
- Closed
- Programme:
- Innovation - Aquaculture
This grant award has a total value of £202,253
FDAB - Financial Details (Award breakdown by headings)
| DI - Other Costs | Indirect - Indirect Costs | DA - Investigators | DA - Estate Costs | DI - Staff | DI - T&S | DA - Other Directly Allocated |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| £89,033 | £33,449 | £10,858 | £24,549 | £41,004 | £2,106 | £1,255 |
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