Genomic Selection and Genome-Wide Association Analysis for Stress Response, Disease Resistance and Body Weight in European Seabass
Stavroula Oikonomou,
Athanasios Samaras,
Maria Tekeoglou,
Dimitrios Loukovitis,
Arkadios Dimitroglou,
Lefteris Kottaras,
Kantham Papanna,
Leonidas Papaharisis,
Costas S. Tsigenopoulos,
Michail Pavlidis,
Dimitrios Chatziplis
Affiliations
Stavroula Oikonomou
Laboratory of Agrobiotechnology and Inspection of Agricultural Products, Department of Agricultural Technology, School of Geotechnical Sciences, International Hellenic University, Alexander Campus, P.O. Box 141, Sindos, 57 400 Thessaloniki, Greece
Athanasios Samaras
Department of Biology, University of Crete, 714 09 Heraklion, Greece
Maria Tekeoglou
Laboratory of Agrobiotechnology and Inspection of Agricultural Products, Department of Agricultural Technology, School of Geotechnical Sciences, International Hellenic University, Alexander Campus, P.O. Box 141, Sindos, 57 400 Thessaloniki, Greece
Dimitrios Loukovitis
Laboratory of Agrobiotechnology and Inspection of Agricultural Products, Department of Agricultural Technology, School of Geotechnical Sciences, International Hellenic University, Alexander Campus, P.O. Box 141, Sindos, 57 400 Thessaloniki, Greece
Arkadios Dimitroglou
Department of Research & Development, Nireus Aquaculture SA, 341 00 Chalkida, Greece
Lefteris Kottaras
Department of Research & Development, Nireus Aquaculture SA, 341 00 Chalkida, Greece
Kantham Papanna
Department of Research & Development, Nireus Aquaculture SA, 341 00 Chalkida, Greece
Leonidas Papaharisis
Department of Research & Development, Nireus Aquaculture SA, 341 00 Chalkida, Greece
Costas S. Tsigenopoulos
Institute of Marine Biology, Biotechnology and Aquaculture (IMBBC), Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (HCMR), 71003 Heraklion, Greece
Michail Pavlidis
Department of Biology, University of Crete, 714 09 Heraklion, Greece
Dimitrios Chatziplis
Laboratory of Agrobiotechnology and Inspection of Agricultural Products, Department of Agricultural Technology, School of Geotechnical Sciences, International Hellenic University, Alexander Campus, P.O. Box 141, Sindos, 57 400 Thessaloniki, Greece
The majority of the genetic studies in aquaculture breeding programs focus on commercial traits such as body weight, morphology, and resistance against diseases. However, studying stress response in European seabass may contribute to the understanding of the genetic component of stress and its future use to select broodstock whose offspring may potentially be less affected by handling. A total of 865 European seabass offspring were used to measure body weight and stress response. Moreover, a disease challenge experiment with Vibrio anguillarum was conducted in a subset (332) of the above fish to study disease resistance. Fish were genotyped with a 57k SNP array, and a Genome-Wide Association study (GWAS) was performed. Five SNPs were found to be statistically significant, three of which affect stress indicators and body weight (in a subgroup of the population), and a putative SNP affects growth performance, while no SNP associated with resistance to Vibrio was found. A moderate to high genomic heritability regarding stress indicators and body weight was estimated using the Restricted Maximum Likelihood (REML) process. Finally, the accuracy, along with the correlation between Estimated Breeding Values (EBVs) and Genomic Estimated Breeding Values (GEBVs), were calculated for all the traits.
