Scientific Reports (May 2021)

A simple and rapid method for fish sex identification based on recombinase-aided amplification and its use in Cynoglossus semilaevis

  • Zhichao Nie,
  • Peng Lü,
  • Rusong Zhang,
  • Yishuai Tu,
  • Zhenni Liu,
  • Yin Li,
  • Cong Tang,
  • Xiqing Li,
  • Kun Zhao,
  • Qiang Zhou,
  • Feng Li,
  • Jun Wang,
  • Zhanzhuang Zeng,
  • Min Tu,
  • Hong Zhang

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-89571-z
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11, no. 1
pp. 1 – 11

Abstract

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Abstract Fish sex identification is a basic technique of great importance for both fish genetic studies and fisheries. Due to the sexual reversal phenomenon in many fish species, a simple and rapid molecular identification method for fish genetic sex is urgently needed to suit versatile detection scenarios, such as point-of-need applications. In this study, we took Cynoglossus semilaevis as an example, established a recombinase-aided amplification (RAA)-based method for sex identification, and combined the RAA-detection with two result visualization approaches with distinct features, capillary electrophoresis (CE) and lateral flow dipstick (LFD). Specific primers and probe were designed to specifically detect the sex chromosome W of C. semilaevis in order to distinguish the genetic sex between males, pseudo-males and females. To evaluate the performance of our methods, the genetic sex for twenty-eight males, sixty-eight pseudo-males and fifty-four females were examined with the RAA-based method and classical PCR-based genotyping method, demonstrating the consistent results of sex identification between both methods. The RAA-LFD method is operationally simple, rapid (~ 30 min) and holds great potential for point-of-need applications of fish sex identification, including fishery fields. The method presented here could be effective for identifying fish gender with the ZW karyotype.