Development and characterization of 15 novel polymorphic microsatellites for Giant river-catfish, Sperata seenghala (Sykes, 1839) using next generation sequencing approach.

Abstract

The giant river-catfish Sperata seenghala (Sykes, 1839) (Order: Siluriformes; family: Bagridae) is widely distributed throughout South Asia including Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Thailand and China (Talwar & Jhingran, 1991). This fish inhabits rivers, reservoirs, lakes and contributes substantially to the livelihood of local people. It also enjoys higher consumer preference and price compared to carps due to fewer intramuscular bones, better taste and nutritive value (Mohanty et al., 2012). At present, the demand for this fish is being met through capture fisheries only. This could lead to depletion of natural stocks on account of overfishing. Sustainability of resources is possible through effective management measures based on knowledge of genetic stock structure. Very few studies have been carried out on molecular characterization of the genetic stocks of S. seenghala and these employed only few polymorphic markers (Saini, Dua, & Mohindra, 2010). A larger set of validated polymorphic markers are required for a reliable stock structure analysis. In this study, we report 15 novel polymorphic microsatellites in S. seenghala for the first time.