Manipulation of chromosomes in fish: review of various techniques and their implications in aquaculture

Human ingenuity has made it possible to advent the chromosome manipulation techniques to produce individuals with differing genomic status in a number of fish using various causal agents such as physical shocks (temperature or hydrostatic pressure), chemical (endomitotics) and anesthetic treatments either to suppress the second meiotic division shortly after fertilization of eggs or to prevent the first mitotic division shortly prior to mitotic cleavage formation. This results in the induction of polyploidy (triploidy and tetraploidy), gynogenesis (both meiotic and mitotic leading to clonal lines) and androgenesis in fish population. The rationale for the induction of such ploidy in fish has been its potential for generating sterile individuals, rapidly inbred lines and masculinized fish, which could be of benefit to fish farming and aquaculture. In this paper, these are critically reviewed and the implication of recently developed chromosome manipulation techniques to various fin fishes is discussed.

Production of triploid African catfish, Clarias gariepinus (Burchell), using chromosome manipulation techniques

An experiment was conducted to induce triploidy in African catfish, Clarias gariepinus, using heat shock and cold shock techniques. Cold shock at a temperature of 0± 1°C and 5±1°C for a duration of 15, 30, 45 and 60 min and heat shock at a temperature of 40±0.5°C and 41 ±OS C for a duration of 1, 2 and 3 min was given to induce triploidy 5 min after fertilization. Maximum percentage of triploids (91.4%) were obtained in the heat shock at a temperature of 40±0SC for a duration of 1 min whereas cold shock at 0± 1 C for a duration of 60 min yielded 90% of triploids. Chromosome analysis revealed that diploids have 54 chromosomes and triploids have 81 chromosomes. The erythrocyte measurements of the minor axis and major axis were 1.17 times larger in treated fish than in controls. The growth studies showed that the growth rate was not significantly affected in triploids.

Use of simple fat analysis for evaluating quality changes in intermediate moisture fish stored at tropical temperature

Changes in the quality of intermediate moisture (IM) fish during storage at 38°C were monitored by assessing the moisture content, pH, acid value, peroxide value and thiobarbituric acid (TBA) value periodically. Results adequately portrayed the hydrolysis and peroxidation of fats and the concomitant protein degradation and crosslinking reactions that have been shown by more sophisticated methods to occur in intermediate moisture fish. Since these changes markedly affect the organoleptic quality, acceptability/shelf-life and nutritive value of IM flesh-foods their predictability by simple fat analytical techniques is of practical value where/when the more sophisticated monitoring techniques are not feasible.