Plant & Animal Genomes XI Conference

January 11-15, 2003
Town & Country Convention Center
San Diego, CA

Workshop: Aquaculture
            

CATFISH GENOMICS: WHERE ARE WE GOING BASED ON THE PROGRESS OF THE FIRST FIVE YEARS?

Department of Fisheries and Allied Aquacultures and Program of Cell and Molecular Biosciences, 203 Swingle Hall, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849, USA

The major progress has been made in catfish genomics in the last five years in the areas of molecular marker development; construction of framework linkage maps; development of genomic resources; and analysis of genomic organization and composition. Hundreds of microsatellite markers, thousands of AFLP and RAPD markers have been developed and identified. Linkage maps have been constructed using both microsatellites and AFLP markers using channel catfish resource families and the channel catfish x blue catfish interspecific hybrid resource families. Genomic resources have been developed including a genomic DNA library, more than 20 cDNA libraries, two BAC libraries, and more than 12,000 expressed sequence tags (ESTs). In spite of the great progress made, much effort should be devoted to catfish genomics. The major focus should include development of type I markers and their mapping to facilitate comparative genomics, much greater effort in QTL mapping especially for disease resistance, and expansion and perhaps integration of existing linkage maps. The catfish genomics community should initiate physical mapping by contig construction of BAC clones as well as establish expression physical maps by hybridizing ESTs to BAC clones. Further development of genomic resources should continue including expansion of the EST resources and development of microarray-based technology for the analysis of genomic expression in catfish, particularly in relation to the analysis of various quantitative traits.