SCRC: SCRC Honours Scholarship H4.6 Effect of temperature and plant protein inclusion on the growth factor gene expression in Yellowtail Kingfish (Jian Qin; Student Geoffrey Collins)
Seafood CRC: Understanding Yellowtail Kingfish
SCRC: Optimising harvest practices for Yellowtail Kingfish
Ultimately, the need is to make the production of farmed YTK a profitable enterprise. To this end it is necessary to not only reduce the cost of production by improving harvest efficiencies, it is necessary to improve the consistency and overall quality of the product so as to justify a quality driven increase in the farm gate price of the product. Understanding how harvest husbandry techniques influence flesh quality attributes will allow CST to develop and apply best practice standard operating systems, reduce customer complaints and improve the company’s position in a competitive market.
Final report
Farmed Yellowtail Kingfish (YTK) is considered to be a premium quality fish, ideal for sashimi and sushi, dishes comprised of raw fish. To be acceptable for such delicacies the flesh has to be oily, firm and slightly translucent, with a fine creamy texture and a delicate flavour. The price received, and the reputation of the supplier, are largely dependent on the quality of the product produced. Therefore it is of great interest to optimise the production of high quality fish, especially in the increasingly competitive white fish market.
This project sought to investigate several issues relating to commercial harvest practices for Yellowtail Kingfish, with the aim of modifying any aspect to improve product quality and/or harvesting efficiency.
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.