Intergenerational epigenetic effects in Norwegian salmon aquaculture

Background

The environment can influence phenotype through epigenetic alterations such as DNA methylation, histone modifications or chromatin conformational changes. These changes mark and affect the transcriptional activity of the genome without changing the DNA code.

Certain epigenetic marks can persist across multiple generations and have impacts on the characteristics of descendants.

Goal

This project will investigate whether different industry broodstock rearing environments and maturation practices used by breeding and multiplier companies in Norway have significant intergenerational (parent-offspring) impacts on phenotypes (e.g. growth) of production fish, whether epigenetic programming is involved and whether there is potential to use this knowledge as a basis for developing preventions and treatments to mitigate or enhance such effects.

How we work

The project consists of five workpackages.

WP1 (led by Nofima with NCEA) will collate information about current industry broodstock rearing and maturation practices.

All relevant samples that we need from G0 broodstock will be obtained in WP2 (led by IMR) and all relevant G1 offspring phenotypes measured and tested for significant effects in WP3 (led by Nofima).

If significant phenotypic effects are detected, relevant samples will be fully processed for methylomic, transcriptomic, and metabolomic testing in WP4 (led by USC) and this will provide data for the meta-analysis comparison to other projects and allow recommendations to be made about possible preventative methods, treatments and areas of future research in WP5 (led by ICM).

Participating companies Mowi and Benchmark Genetics will provide all animals and broodstock rearing environments.