Gynogenesis in the African catfish Clarias gariepinus (Burchell, 1822) III. Induction of endomitosis and the presence of residual genetic variation

Gynogenesis is thought to be a useful method to generate fully inbred lines in teleost fish. Endomitosis, which refers to the inhibition of first mito sis, should lead to fully homozygous offspring. In this study, the optimal conditions to induce mitogynogenesis (endomitosis) by heat shocking of the eggs were determined in the African catfish Clarias gariepinus. Comparable survival rates were obtained with a shock of 40 degrees C applied for 1 min and a shock of 39 degrees C applied for 1.5-2 min. Applying the shock arou nd 20 or 37 min after activation resulted in the highest survival rates (ca . 5% relative to the positive control). The amount of inbreeding (homozygos ity) and paternal contamination were assayed by using polymorphic microsate llite DNA markers. In less than 1% of the offspring paternal alleles were p resent, indicating a true gynogenic background for most of the progeny. Mei ogynogenetic and mitogynogenetic C. gariepinus showed a fair amount of resi dual heterozygosity (respectively 86% and 75% for one of the markers). Hete rozygous catfish obtained through mitogynogenesis were attributed to the (s imultaneous) presence of meiogynogens. In addition, we prove that the sex d etermining system of African catfish C, gariepinus is heterogametic in the male (XY/XX). (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.