Recently, Prof. Gao Zexia from College of Fisheries of HZAU published an article entitled “Understanding the development of intermuscular bones in teleost: status and future directions for aquaculture” in Reviews in Aquaculture. This article systematically summarized the research progress of Gao’s team and other international researchers on the types, morphology, molecular mechanism and genetic breeding of intermuscular bones (IBs) in lower teleost. Moreover, future research directions were elaborated in the article.
Commonly known as bones of fish, IBs can be found from lower to higher teleost and have evolved from simple structure to complex structure and then degenerated. There are complex IBs in the main cultured freshwater fishes in China, such as herring, grass carp, silver carp, bighead carp, carp, crucian carp and turbot. Apart from China, IBs are also common in Cypriniformes, which are mainly bred in South America, such as Brazil. IBs impose considerable limitation on processing and export earning, and cause some trouble and risks for people eating such fish (especially for children). However, the palatability of freshwater fish with IBs, the easy mastery of aquaculture technology, cultural and traditional consumption habits and other factors decide its key role in aquaculture in China. In addition, freshwater fish with IBs account for 77.5% of all freshwater fish production and 42.6% of all aquatic species. Some scholars pointed out that aquaculture in China has made tremendous contributions to the world. If China could breed main cultured freshwater fishes without IBs, it would make another great contribution to the world.
This article first reviewed the origin of IBs, introduced the types, morphology, ossification mode and molecular formation mechanism of IBs, then summarized the current efforts on breeding technologies to reduce or delete IBs, and systematically illustrated some previous misunderstandings about IBs.
With respect to future research directions of IBs, the author first proposed that the ossification mode of IBs needs to be studied more systematically from the aspects of fish swimming mode and phylogenetic status. Second, this paper described how to identify SNP loci significantly related to the number of IBs through high-throughput sequencing, GWAS analysis and other techniques, and analyzed the molecular mechanism of IBs development in fish through gene overexpression, gene knockout and other gene function research methods. Finally, Gao pointed out that in the future, if the regulation mechanism of IBs development is revealed, and then combined with the breeding project, a new approach for the cultivation of fish without IBs could be obtained, which will promote the development of aquaculture in the world, especially in China.
In recent years, under the guidance of Pro.Wang Weimin, the project team has carried out a series of researches on the molecular regulation mechanism and genetic breeding of IBs. Relevant results of research were published in Wan et al., Aquaculture, 2019; Xiong et al., Aquaculture, 2019; Zhang et al., Gene,2018; Liu et al., GigaScience, 2017; Wan et al., Scientific Reports, 2016; Nie et al., BMC Genomics, 2017.
Source: http://news.hzau.edu.cn/2019/0516/54213.shtml
Translated by: Yang Chengzhi
Supervised by: Wang Xiaoyan
