Seafood CRC: Development of a genetic management and improvement strategy for Australian cultured Barramundi
SCRC: Developing efficient diagnostic tools for assessing resistance to viral infection in abalone and oysters
SCRC: PDRS: Use of next generation DNA technologies for revealing the genetic impact of fisheries restocking and ranching
SCRC: PhD: Improvement of abalone nutrition with macroalgae addition
The Australian Abalone Growers’ Association met in September 2009 and identified their priority areas for research. Their two highest priorities were: 1. Identification of nutritional requirements for abalone at different life stages; and 2. Identification of nutritional requirements for abalone for different seasons. Thus, this is clearly an area requiring research and collaboration with abalone growers. Therefore this project will contribute directly towards two of the industry’s identified priorities through enhancing the information generated by 2010/736.
This project lies directly within the A and B of Seafood Theme outcomes. In particular, this project addresses outcomes 1 (Academic researchers with specialist skills and knowledge specific to the seafood industry continue to be available to provide research and technical capacity to the Australian seafood industry) and 2 (CRC industry participants have the necessary skills to implement CRC research results for the use in the aquaculture and wild harvest businesses).
SCRC: PhD Extension : RNA interference (RNAi) as a means to control Neoparamoeba perurans, the causative agent of amoebic gill disease (AGD). (Student: Paula Lima)
Paula Lima began her PhD within project 2007/750 ‘AGD Vaccine Phase III: Sea-based trials, refinement and commercialisation’. Paula began in 2009 and her full stipend, travel and operating funds were paid out of this project. Paula was adopted into the Seafood CRC in late 2009, with no further financial support for her stipend or operating expenses. In 2010 at a meeting of the project’s Management Advisory Committee (MAC), a decision was made to redirect research as it was apparent that the vaccine was not a commercial reality. This occurred one full year into her PhD. This had an effect on Paula’s PhD which was subsequently changed to investigating the use of RNAi as either a research tool and/or a control strategy for AGD. This meant that the entire 1st year’s work was made redundant and Paula had to effectively ‘start over’. Paula has effectively been working in her new area for almost two years. However, the project which funded her stipend is no longer operating. Therefore, Paula still has effectively one year of her PhD left to run. For this reason we sought support from the Seafood CRC to enable Paula to complete her research. This application has the full support of Adam Main, the CEO of the Tasmanian Salmonid Growers' Association (TSGA).
Final report
RNA interference has emerged as a powerful tool for rapid analysis of gene function in non-model organisms and has the potential to identify candidate targets for interventions against diseases of economic importance to aquaculture. The main purpose of the study was to use functional and comparative genomics approaches to investigate whether the RNAi mechanism has been retained or lost in species from the Neoparamoeba genus.
The results provide strong evidence that both infective and non-infective species from Neoparamoeba spp. have evolutionarily retained key genes involved not only in the canonical RNAi mechanism, but also in the mirNA and PiRNA pathways. Despite being promising, these findings are still preliminary and the reality of applying RNAi technology to develop new treatment strategies against AGD still needs further effort.