The project aims to address the question: Can different aquaculture diets be assessed and evaluated by examining the expression profiles on known (or newly discovered) candidate genes that are responsible for, or associated with, the digestion and absorption of diet components.

Nutrition is a key significant consideration in aquaculture operations and absorption of molecular components of feed is the main factor contributing to nutrition in fish. An innovative alternative to feed trials is the use of nutritional genomics, where the specific response to the various diet at a gene expression level can potentially predict the quality of the diet and its suitabilty for optimum aquaculture use.

Candidate genes for such studies include genes associated with the digestion and absorption of nutrients i.e. trypsin, aminopeptidase, bile salt-activated lipase, insulin, glucagon and cholecstokinin. This project is expected to also lead to the discovery of a novel suite of genes whose expression is diet dependant, leading to the discovery of suitable markers for diet effectiveness, reducing the necessity and costs of feed trials.

The research done during the project is expected to greatly enhance our knowledge of the molecular processes with feed digestion, absorption and feed development, thus not only offereing an attractive testing alternative to diet development, but also explore the animal's response to different diets.