Genetic Engineering - A Fast Growing Strain of Abalone

The depletion of natural abalone fisheries and an increase in world demand for the product has led to the development of methods for intensive commercial cultivation of abalone. Owing to the relative newness of the industry, little emphasis has been placed upon domestication and the development of gentically enhanced stocks. Transgenic technology offers a method to rapidly introduce genetically desirable traits which, in combination with long-term breeding programs, opens the possibility of making significant advances in the cost-effectiveness of the industry. We have developed an effective method for the routine production of transgenic abalone which can be implemented on an industrial scale. At present the technology is limited by suitable molecular vectors. Development of such vectors will not only permit efficient expression of introduced genes, but will comply with current policy on the acceptability of transgenics produced by homologous DNA. We have cloned an abalone actin promoter and are in the process of cloning abalone growth hormones and insulin-like-growth factors which we propose to couple to the abalone actin promoter to create an all-abalone gene construct for genetic enhancement of commercial abalone. During Phase I of this project we propose to: (a) characterize the abalone actin promoter and its regulatory elements, (b) construct expression vectors with regulatory elements coupled to reporter genes, (c) transfer these gene constructs into abalone eggs and raise the larvae to adults, (d) study the transcriptional activity of the actin promoter in abalone including levels of expression through early development, and (e) optimize conditions for better integration of foreign DNA into the abalone germline.