Genetic improvement of farmed tilapias: Biochemical characterization of strain differences in Nile tilapia

Four African wild strains (Egypt, Ghana, Senegal and Kenya) and four established Asian farmed strains of Nile tilapia, Oreochromis niloticus (popularly known in the Philippines as Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore and Israel) were analysed electrophoretically at 30 protein loci to estimate genetic differences among the strains. All strains shared alleles at 14 monomorphic and 16 variable loci. Among the African strains, characteristic allele frequency differences were observed at AAT-1 ^* 46 for Ghana and Senegal, ADH ^* 83 for Kenya, ADH ^* 120 for Senegal, G3PDH-2 ^* 300 for Egypt, IDDH ^* 67 for Senegal, sMDH-1 ^* 120 for Kenya and SOD ^* 150 for Senegal. Genetic distance values among the strains revealed a clustering of the farmed strains with Egypt and Ghana O. niloticus, a slight separation of the Senegal strain and a larger separation of the Kenya strain. This profile may reflect the origins of the few founder populations of this species previously introduced to Asia. It also confirms the wider genetic divergence of the Kenya strain (O. niloticus vulcani) from the others studied here, which are all O. n. niloticus. Observed heterozygosities of the strains ranged from 0.026 to 0.071, with the African wild strains the lower values (mean Ho = 0.036) and the farmed strains the higher ones (mean Ho = 0.056). The implications of these results to the ongoing tilapia genetic improvement programme in the Philippines are discussed.