What Can Genetics Do for the Control of Infectious Diseases in Aquaculture?

Simple Summary Infectious diseases place an economic burden on aquaculture and a limitation to its growth. This state-of-the-art review describes the application of genetics and genomics as novel tools to control infectious disease in aquaculture. Infectious diseases place an economic burden on aquaculture and a limitation to its growth. An innovative approach to mitigate their impact on production is breeding for disease resistance: selection for domestication, family-based selection, marker-assisted selection, and more recently, genomic selection. Advances in genetics and genomics approaches to the control of infectious diseases are key to increasing aquaculture efficiency, profitability, and sustainability and to reducing its environmental footprint. Interaction and co-evolution between a host and pathogen can, however, turn breeding to boost infectious disease resistance into a potential driver of pathogenic change. Parallel molecular characterization of the pathogen and its virulence and antimicrobial resistance genes is therefore essential to understand pathogen evolution over time in response to host immunity, and to apply appropriate mitigation strategies.

Automated summary

This review describes the application of genetics and genomics in controlling infectious diseases in aquaculture. Breeding for disease resistance can mitigate the impact of infectious diseases on aquaculture. However, the interaction between host and pathogen during breeding may lead to pathogenic changes. Therefore, the parallel characterization of pathogens and their genes is crucial in understanding pathogen evolution and applying appropriate mitigation strategies.