Aquaculture and biotech company Watershed AC and computational biology firm Evogene Ltd have announced that they have successfully bred the first gene-edited giant freshwater prawn (Macrobrachium rosenbergii).
According to the project partners, the achievement demonstrates the capability of AI-driven technology in supporting sustainable aquaculture R&D with time- and cost- efficiency to help meet the growing demand for seafood.
By implementing data from Evogene’s AI engine for genetic-element based discovery, researchers successfully used CRISPR to breed the crustacean for improved key traits, such as growth rate, disease resistance, and environmental adaptation.
Moving forward, the collaboration aims to advance the technology to commercial scale and expand the application to additional crustacean species such as whiteleg shrimp and red swamp crayfish (Procambarus clarkia).
Together with Israeli academic research institution Ben-Gurion University (BGU), they have received approval from the Israel Innovation Authority (IIA) for a second-year grant to continue developing CRISPR technology for crustaceans.
During the first year, the partners successfully met the collaboration’s planned goals. Evogene leveraged its GeneRator AI tech-engine and provided predictions for optimal guide RNAs (gRNAs), through several novel features: utilisation of un-annotated genomes (lacking gene models), consideration of natural DNA variance in gRNAs design, and off-target prediction to increase editing specificity.
