Evaluation of genomic selection against neuronecrosis in the red-spotted grouper

Red-spotted grouper(Epinephelus akaara) is an important maricultured fish in the southeast coastal area of China.It is highly infected by red-spotted grouper nerve necrosis virus(RGNNV) during the artificial cultivation,which seriously restricted the development of the artificial breeding industry.In this study,230 ind RGNNV susceptible(disease-infected death) and 230 ind resistant(eventually survived fish) red-spotted grouper fry were collected for genome resequencing,and 5 412 683 single nucleotide polymorphisms(SNPs) were discovered,which were used for genetic evaluation of the RGNNV resistance of the red-spotted grouper.The estimated heritability of RGNNV was 0.566 2,and the accuracy of the genomic estimated breeding value(GEBV) with whole genome SNPs markers was 0.154 3.The evaluation of the effect of random selection of different numbers of markers on the genomic prediction accuracy showed that using ≥ 5 000(5 k) SNPs markers could obtain more desirable results.This study provided a useful theoretical reference for application of genomic selection for breeding of red-spotted grouper against RGNNV.