Domestication of aquaculture species is still ongoing, and in some cases occurs in parallel to the establishment of breeding programmes ( Teletchea and Fontaine, 2014). While terrestrial livestock and crops have been undergoing domestication and genetic improvement for many generations, most aquaculture species remain closely related to their wild ancestors ( Teletchea and Fontaine, 2014). However, the application of the latest scientific and technological advances is occurring rapidly, and continued innovation is required to address the existing production barriers and support the sustainable growth of aquaculture.
The sustainability of aquaculture is often hindered by difficulty in fully controlling species' reproduction cycles, and the constant threat of infectious diseases which can cause major losses of stock, in addition to environmental impacts ( Gephart et al., 2020). When compared to most crop and livestock production systems, aquaculture is at a comparatively formative stage and is a relatively high-risk industry. While there is significant scope for expansion of production to meet this demand, several pertinent challenges remain. The integration and synergy of genomics, genome editing, and reproductive technologies have exceptional potential to expedite genetic gain in aquaculture species in the coming decades.Īquaculture is playing an ever-increasing role in meeting the global food and nutrition demand of a rapidly growing human population ( Costello et al., 2020). This review focuses on the state-of-the-art of surrogate broodstock technology, and discusses the next steps for its applications in research and production. Finally, it provides new opportunities for dissemination of tailored, potentially genome edited, production animals of high genetic merit for farming. Thirdly, it holds potential to drastically reduce the effective generation interval in aquaculture breeding programmes, expediting the rate of genetic gain.
Secondly, the technology has pertinent applications in preservation of aquatic genetic resources, and in facilitating breeding of high-value species which are otherwise difficult to rear in captivity. Firstly, surrogate broodstock technology raises the opportunity to improve genome editing via the use of cultured germ cells, to reduce mosaicism and potentially enable in vivo CRISPR screens in the progeny of surrogate parents. There are many successful examples of intra- and inter-species germ cell transfer and production of viable offspring in finfish, and this leads to new opportunities to address the aforementioned limitations. Surrogate broodstock technology facilitates the production of donor-derived gametes in surrogate parents, and comprises transplantation of germ cells of donors into sterilised recipients. However, limitations to these breeding and editing approaches include long generation intervals of many fish species, alongside both technical and regulatory barriers to the application of genome editing in commercial production. Genetic improvement of aquaculture species has major untapped potential to help achieve this, with selective breeding and genome editing offering exciting avenues to expedite this process. Aquaculture is playing an increasingly important role in meeting global demands for seafood, particularly in low and middle income countries.
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