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national pacific oyster breeding program: completing poms resistance in spat and transition to selection for traditional commercial traits

BUDGET EXPENDITURE: $177,610

PRINCIPLE INVESTIGATOR: Dr. Andrew Trotter

ORGANISATION: IMAS - UTAS

PROJECT CODE: 2020-096

PROJECT STATUS: Complete

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WHY WAS THIS RESEARCH UNDERTAKEN? 

The production of young spat that have a high resistant to POMS (> 80%) is still a significant challenge in the recovery from POMS. Achieving this aim will provide the foundation for industry to complete the recovery from POMS.  Importantly, prior switching focus to breed for POMS resistance, the breeding program was selecting oysters for four commercially important traits; growth rate, meat condition, shell shape and non-specific survival. It is vital for the breeding program to return to this focus, in addition to completing the selection for high level of disease resistance in young spat. 


Pacific oysters bred for resistance to POMS present a significant opportunity to study defense mechanisms in an invertebrate species. The immunological component of this project will investigate aspects of host resistance in early life-stage oysters. A focus of the project will be the development of immunological memory, a well-known characteristic of adaptive immunity, that is now an accepted feature of the innate immune response of invertebrates. The project will investigate the association between the phenomenon of immune memory and molecular and functional immune parameters in the Pacific oyster. Included will be an investigation of epigenetic modifications to key immune genes and an assessment of immune priming as a health management strategy to POMS. Furthermore, genetic resistance to POMS is believed to be a multigenic trait governed largely by the immune system.

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OBJECTIVES:

  1. ​Undertake two breeding seasons in selections for POMS resistance in young spat.

  2. Investigate the molecular mechanisms underlying disease resistance to POMS.

  3. Recommence selective breeding for traditional commercially important traits.

 

RESOURCES GENERATED:

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