Marine bivalves are a group of species composed of clams, mussels and oysters. Bivalves are keystone species in coastal ecosystems and represent an increasingly important segment of the global aquaculture industry. Domestication of shellfish species is in the early stages, with few organized breeding programmes and a heavy reliance on wild seed. Consequently, the development and use of genomic markers may significantly assist shellfish aquaculture breeding and production. However, molecular genetic markers typically exhibit unusual patterns of segregation in bivalve species, which result in deviations from Mendelian expectations, and could potentially limit their use in parental assignment, mapping of quantitative trait loci and genomic prediction. Previous studies have suggested that segregation distortions originate at the larval stage, as a result of the linkage of markers to deleterious mutations. This high genetic load has been associated with the high fecundity of bivalve species. However, no direct evidence of a high incidence of de novo mutations has been provided. The aim of this thesis is to gain further insight into segregation distortions in bivalve species by studying the phenomenon at a genome-wide scale, using modern high-throughput sequencing technology. The studies presented in this thesis derive from experiments involving genotyping of parents and offspring from pair-crosses of three different bivalve species (the Pacific oyster Crassostrea gigas, the Blue mussel Mytilus edulis, and the GreenshellTM mussel Perna canaliculus) using high throughput sequencing and SNP arrays. The parent and offspring genotype data were used to characterize patterns of segregation distortion at a genome-wide level, followed by exploratory analyses to test hypotheses related to possible causes of this distortion. Three main findings resulted from the genome-wide analysis of segregation patterns. First, by using Restriction site Associated DNA sequencing (RAD-Seq) we observe that technical artefacts are more widespread than previously considered, contributing to apparent distortions via unreliable genotype calls. By analysing read depth data from RAD-Seq, we suggest that apparent homozygous genotype calls may actually be hemizygous, suggesting a very high frequency of null alleles which contribute to distorted segregation patterns. Bioinformatic pipelines to improve RAD-Seq locus assembly and marker genotyping for bivalve species are presented. Second, by using a high-density SNP array and RAD-Seq in pair crosses of Pacific oyster and aligning to the reference genome assembly, we find that segregation distortions cover extensive regions of the genome, and that certain genomic regions are consistently distorted in different families. Finally, following previous suggestions that the reproductive strategies of bivalve species may favour a high mutation rate, we provide preliminary evidence of a high incidence of de novo mutations that appear spontaneously (i) during male and female gamete formation and (ii) post-zygotically, during larval development. This putative high de novo mutation rate is likely to also contribute to deviations from Mendelian inheritance patterns in these species. New genomic technologies have allowed us to gain substantial insight into the intriguing yet poorly understood phenomena related to inheritance in bivalve species. The results have both fundamental and practical implications for genetic analysis interpretation and selective breeding for aquaculture in this large and highly diverse group of species.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:756987 |
| Date | January 2018 |
| Creators | PenĚaloza Navarro, Carolina Soledad |
| Contributors | Houston, Ross ; Haley, Christopher |
| Publisher | University of Edinburgh |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://hdl.handle.net/1842/33036 |
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