APFA IPA: RNAi treatment of broodstock to reduce disease impacts in farmed prawns

Funded Activity Summary

With the exception for one farm, the Australian prawn farming industry remains reliant on the use of wild broodstock in hatcheries to generate seed to stock farm ponds,. Due partly to problems with GAV often occurring at high prevalence in North Queensland (NQ) (eg. Etty Bay, Bingil Bay, Bramston Beach, Yorkeys Knob), GAV-free broodstock have increasingly been sought from more remote locations in the Northern Territory (NT) (eg. Joseph Bonaparte Gulf and Melville/Tiwi Island) (Cowley et al. 2016).

Broodstock pairs (male + female) typically cost ~$160 when sourced locally from NQ and ~$600 when sourced from NT. Hatcheries use in the order of 3,000 wild-caught broodstock pairs annually. Thus due to (i) the substantially higher costs of broodstock sourced from remote regions in NT, (ii) the detection of a GAV variant designated Yellow head virus genotype 7 (YHV7) amongst NT stock (Cowley et al. 2016) with commercially relevant pathogenic potential (CSIRO Unpublished data) and (iii) difficulties in supply continuity and transport stress, the use of a hatchery-based RNAi strategy to reduce or clear GAV infection from local NQ broodstock with potential to abrogate or curtail the vertical transmission of GAV to progeny would significantly benefit industry.

Proof-of-concept obtained in this project that RNAi can be up-scaled from experimental to hatchery-scale systems, and that progeny with markedly reduced GAV infection loads can be generated from carrier broodstock injected with dsRNA, will provide industry with the confidence needed to apply the technology commercially once an APVMA permit has been issued for its use.


Objectives:
1. Knowledge of the ability of antivirals to abrogate vertical transmission of GAV from parents to progeny.
2. Knowledge of the heightened growth, survival and health performance of progeny from parents that received the antiviral compared progeny from parents that did not receive the antiviral, when reared under commercially comparable pond conditions.

Funded Activity Details

Start Date: 08-06-2016

End Date: 28-02-2018

Funding Scheme: Funding Scheme not available

Funding Amount: $150,000.00

Funder: Fisheries Research and Development Corporation

Research Topics

ANZSRC Field of Research (FoR)

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ANZSRC Socio-Economic Objective (SEO)

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Other Keywords

Animal Health | Aquaculture | Biotechnology | Disease | Husbandry

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