The Genomics of the Farmed Shrimp: Current Status and Application

Shrimp aquaculture over the years has made tremendous progress. The application of modern biotechnological tools, including next-generation sequencing (NGS) techniques, has revolutionized the genomics of commercially important aquaculture species. Genetic improvement programmes targeting desired economic traits are being implemented worldwide with knowledge gained through development of genetic resources. These genetic resources form the basis to understand and develop the strategy for selective breeding of aquaculture species for improved performance. In view of serious disease outbreaks in shrimp aquaculture, and lack of understanding of key biological, reproductive and physiological functions at the molecular level, it has become critical to develop and exploit the available genomic resources to the full potential. This review presents recent progress in development of genetic resources such as transcriptomics, genomics, DNA markers and linkage maps having future potential in selective breeding programmes for commercially important penaeid species.