PRECISION GENETICS FOR IMPROVING PRODUCTION TRAITS OF TILAPIA

David D. Kuhn*, Jarred Callura, Richard Peterson, Stephen Smith, Oscar Galagarza
 
*Department of Food Science and Technology
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Blacksburg, VA 24061
davekuhn@vt.edu
 

Global production of aquacultured tilapia is approaching 6 million tons a year and global sales exceed $10 billion. In order to support the rapid expansion of tilapia production, we need to continue to innovate. The tilapia industry has been supported by genetic programs that use selective breeding to select for desirable production traits such as enhanced growth rates, improved feed efficiency, increased disease resistance to pathogens, and stress tolerance. These programs have been instrumental for the overall success of the tilapia industry. However, there are some production traits that are not easily addressed by selective breeding. One such trait is fillet yield.

Intrexon, a biotechnology company, has introduced the "FLT" trait into tilapia in order to improve fillet yield. The FLT trait is a recessive gene alteration that does not involve the insertion of recombinant DNA and is not transgenic. This precision breeding approach has successfully increased the fillet yield by 25% (Figure 1) without negatively impacting growth rate, feed efficiency, or nutritional quality of the fillets. An increased fillet yield will provide producers an opportunity to either (i) shorten the production cycle while maintaining the same amount of saleable meat, or (ii) maintain the production cycle with more fillet to sell to the market. This technology can be used to improve other production traits and can be used in other species of finfish.