Abstract
Rapid and accurate sex-identification of salmonids has remained an important challenge for aquaculture and wild population study and management. A molecular method looking for the presence of the male-specific sdY gene has recently been proposed. However, the size of the amplified fragment (~500pb) and the DNA revealing technique (agarose-gel electrophoresis) preclude its use on partially degraded DNA and in high-throughput population studies running smaller fragments on automated DNA analyzers. Here, we propose an improved molecular method based on the amplification of a shorter section of the sdY gene for sex-determination in Atlantic salmon and brown trout. Designed primers were multiplexed with several microsatellites and provided reliable sexing for 97 % of the individuals tested. We successfully applied this method to both fresh and archived tissues from 16 individuals (9 populations) of brown trout and 19 individuals (14 populations) of Atlantic salmon. This molecular marker also includes important length polymorphism providing useful Y-linked phylogeographic information.
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Acknowledgments
We thank F. Fournel, J. L. Fagard, G. Euzenat (Station ONEMA—BRESLE) for providing samples and morphological sex determination. We also thank C. Rivière, A. Richard, C. Le Rohic, D. Barracou, W. Beaumont, J. Cucherousset, G. Garrot, Y. Salaville, I. Mirkovic, H. Catroux, P. Guéraud, A. Manicki, J.-P. Porcher, J.-F. Rubin, the SD76 (ONEMA), for their valuable help in collecting samples. This study was funded by a grant from ONEMA and the European Regional Development Fund (Transnational program Interreg IV, Project AARC—Atlantic Aquatic Resource Conservation). Samples were genotyped at the INRA sequencing platform of Le Rheu.
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Quéméré, E., Perrier, C., Besnard, AL. et al. An improved PCR-based method for faster sex determination in brown trout (Salmo trutta) and Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar). Conservation Genet Resour 6, 825–827 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12686-014-0259-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12686-014-0259-8