PENAEID GENETICS AND BIOTECHNOLOGY

The application of biotechnology to penaeid prawn aquaculture is incre asing in importance. Early doubts that such approaches were unnecessar y, given the crude state of development of the prawn aquaculture indus try, have been replaced by the recognition that sophisticated molecula r approaches will be required to tackle key problems of disease recogn ition and control, and to achieve higher production through the develo pment of domesticated strains. Progress in penaeid genetic and biotech nological research has been slow because of a lack of knowledge on fun damental aspects of their biology. However, data is beginning to emerg e from research projects started in the last decade, and is likely to increase rapidly in the next IO years. Highly variable markers have be en developed that allow the genetic variation in prawn stocks to be as sessed, even in highly inbred cultured lines. The extent to which grow th rate is under genetic central has now been assessed in some species using rigorous experimental designs to estimate heritabilities. Highl y sensitive techniques that allow the isolation and characterisation o f very small quantities of peptides are being used to investigate the endocrine control of reproduction, and work has begun on the isolation and characterisation of genes that play an important role in growth a nd reproduction. Greater attention is being paid to developing cell li nes for prawns, and to the development of molecular probes for the ide ntification of pathogens. These tools will provide a basis for a more detailed description of the penaeid prawn genome, for understanding di sease resistance, and for developing effective control of reproduction and the development of disease free or disease resistant domesticated lines. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.