Abstract
Breeding is the collection of beneficial mutants. While breeding of crops and livestock has a history of more than 10,000 years, breeding of fish is still in its infancy. In fish, chromosome manipulation, gene transfer (transgenics), and drug-induced mutation have been used to modify the chromosome number and genome sequence in the past, but these techniques have not been able to produce superior species in a short period of time as planned.
Genome editing technology, which has been developed since 2010, has made it possible to create strains with desired traits in a short period of time. The authors have produced the world's first animal genome-edited food, the “increased muscle mass red sea bream”. The red sea bream is a strain in which the function of the myostatin gene was suppressed by deleting 8 or 14 nucleotides using genome editing technology, resulting in an increase in muscle mass, which is the edible portion. The red sea bream strain was established in only two years after the genome-editing process, and in addition to the increased muscle mass as originally intended, the feeding efficiency of this strain was improved. It was also confirmed that there were no changes in similar sequences in its genome other than the target sequence.
Thus, genome editing technology can be used to create fish strains with the desired traits in a short period of time. In other words, it has the potential to rapidly create strains that are beneficial to producers or consumers, or that match various aquaculture systems, and is expected to advance the aquaculture industry.
