Isolation and characterization of a germ cell marker in teleost fish Colossoma macropomum

The native Amazonian fish tambaqui (Colossoma macropomum) is the second-largest scaled fish in South America and the most common native species in Brazil. To preserve genetic resources with sufficient genetic diversity through germ cell cryopreservation and transplantation techniques, a molecular marker for identifying the cells is required to trace them during the manipulation processes. The vasa gene is a promising candidate, as its specific expression in germ cell lineage has been well-conserved throughout animal evolution. In this study, the full sequence of the vasa cDNA homolog from tambaqui was isolated and characterized, showing an open reading frame of 2010 bp encoding 669 amino acids. The putative protein was shown to contain eight conserved motifs of the DEAD-box protein family and high similarity to vasa homologs of other species. Tambaqui vasa (tvasa) mRNA expression was specific to the gonads, and in situ hybridization showed signals only in oocytes and spermatogonia. The results suggested that tvasa could be a useful germ cell marker in this species.