Proteomics in fisheries and aquaculture: An approach for food security

Abstract

Background: Aquaculture is expected to continue at a faster growth rate than other major food production sectors as there is an increasing average per capita intake of animal protein in the form of fish. Due to this growing importance, aquaculture sector has witnessed many challenges to produce fish in a sustainable manner. Owing to this, there has been introduction of different omics technologies like genomics, transcriptomics and proteomics to address many issues in fisheries. Scope and approach: A growing trend to utilize these omics technologies in aquaculture has also been observed during the last decade. With the advancement in proteomic techniques, many issues in aquaculture related to growth, disease resistance, safety and quality of aqua food and challenges with respect to climate change can be addressed. In this review, a balanced perspective of basic to advanced proteomics technologies and its future prospects to address key areas in aquaculture is provided. Various proteomics techniques along with available bioinformatic resources and instances for its applications in different areas of fisheries related to safety, quality and health are described. Key findings and conclusion: Proteomics could be a powerful tool for characterisation of proteomes of any fish or food product. Thorough review has shown that using such approach, multiple aspects of fishes can be examined and molecular markers for their welfare can be identified ensuring sustainable fish growth and hence quality and safety of aqua food.