New paper on structural variation in Atlantic salmon genome

Read all about the team's latest discoveries, related to structural variation in salmon and insight into differences between wild and domesticated salmon genomes.

28/10/2020 

New discoveries and insight into Atlantic salmon biology appeared earlier this month in the Nature Communications research journal. Leading a major international collaboration, several members of the University of Edinburgh's aquaculture team studied nearly 500 Atlantic salmon to better understand genetic differences between wild and farmed populations. Their study resulted in the discovery of almost 16,000 structural variants in the Atlantic salmon genome, which may influence variation in many traits, including behaviour.

The open access article from Nature Communications is available through this external link.

The project was led by Dan Macqueen and his former Aberdeen-based PhD student Alicia Bertolotti, with key contributions from team members based at the Roslin Institute, including former PhD student Michael Gallagher, Postdoctoral Research Fellow Manu Kumar Gundappa, and Group Leader Diego Robledo. This was a major effort involving a large international team of excellent collaborators including Prof. Sigbjørn Lien and colleagues based at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences.

The Roslin team is very excited not only because of what this research has revealed, but also what these discoveries can help achieve in the future. "These findings open the door to exploiting structural variation in salmon genetics, supporting research and applications in breeding and conservation, in addition to improving our understanding of genome biology and evolution," Dan explains.

The University has developed a larger article detailing the process the team used during the study, and how they developed a new approach to examining possible variations (previously used in studies of human genomes). Additionally, Alicia Bertolotti has written her own firsthand account of the project, providing valuable perspective on the research and its results.

The full University article on research into farmed and wild salmon is available through this link.

You can read Alicia Bertolotti's account of the project through this external link.

The rest of the team are eager to congratulate colleagues involved in this study on their groundbreaking new work!