ARS | Publication request: Characterizing the Genetic Diversity of Rainbow Trout in Support of Broodstock Development

Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract
Publication Acceptance Date: November 3, 2008
Publication Date: January 10, 2009
Citation: Rexroad Iii, C.E., Palti, Y., Vallejo, R.L. 2009. Characterizing the Genetic Diversity of Rainbow Trout in Support of Broodstock Development. Meeting Abstract.

Technical Abstract: The use of molecular genetic technologies for broodstock management and selective breeding of aquaculture species is becoming increasingly more common with the continued development of species-specific genome tools and reagents. Rainbow trout are the most widely produced salmonid in the US, attracting significant interest due to their economic impacts as an aquaculture species and on sport fisheries, and as a model research organism for studies related to genome evolution, carcinogenesis, toxicology, comparative immunology, disease ecology, physiology and nutrition. The USDA/ARS National Center for Cool and Cold Water Aquaculture (NCCCWA) has participated in the development of genomic resources for rainbow trout with the aim of developing new strategies for selective breeding for aquaculture production efficiency. Specifically, our efforts have targeted the development of microsatellite and single nucleotide polymorphism markers, sequencing of expressed sequence tags, and the construction of physical and genetic maps to facilitate the identification of genes affecting aquaculture productions traits through candidate gene characterization, functional genomic, and genetic mapping approaches. An evolutionarily recent genome duplication event complicates the development and use of these resources. Recently some of these resources were used to characterize the extent of linkage disequilibrium in the NCCCWA rainbow trout broodstock population to determine the marker densities required to conduct genome scans. The NCCCWA broodstock population is closely related to commercial germplasm; therefore our findings have the potential to impact industry selective breeding programs. In addition we have evaluated effective population size in an effort to characterize the true breeding size of our population.