Albert Chang

#1460941
AquAdvantage Salmon
Salmon are ubiquitous on American plates, making them an obvious candidate for
widespread farming and genetic modification. One Massachusetts-based company, AquaBounty
Technologies, has spearheaded the effort to bring genetically modified farmed salmon to the
table. As of now, some wild populations of Pacific salmon are endangered due to habitat loss and
overfishing, leading to a majority of the salmon sold being farmed. However, because of the
salmons high position on the food web (trophic level), traditional methods of aquaculture have
been shown to be inefficient due to the salmons primarily fish-based diet, and critics have been
vocal about the unsustainable use of forage fish as feed for farmed salmon (Pauly, 2002).
AquaBounty has attempted to address this issue by producing a line of modified Atlantic
salmon that grow at a rate twice that of the wild fish. Because these AquAdvantage salmon are
able to reach market size more quickly than wild-type fish, they require substantially less feed to
produce, effectively reducing the strain on populations of lesser fish and decreasing the most
significant cost of commercial salmon aquaculture. These modified Salmon are able to grow
year-round as opposed to only during spring and summer due to salmon growth hormone being
constitutively expressed. This occurs because AquaBounty was able to use the promoter from the
constantly expressed Ocean Pout Antifreeze gene and put it in front of a Chinook Salmon growth
hormone gene.
AquaBounty was able to accomplish this feat through the use of recombinant DNA
technology where they were able to create the opAFP-GHc2 gene construct by combining the

cDNA from the growth hormone gene of the Chinook salmon and the promoter/termination
regions of the Ocean Pout. Specifically, the construct consists of base pairs 1580-2193 from the
Ocean Pout promoter region, followed by the Chinook Growth Hormone cDNA, which is
followed by the complete Pout antifreeze 3 region and the first 1678 base pairs of the Pout
antifreeze 5 region (Yaskowiak ES, 2006). To create the AquAdvantage line, fertilized eggs of
wild-type Atlantic Salmon were injected with the growth hormone gene construct, producing the
first generation of mosaic founder animals. Then, two of the founders offspring that were rapid
growers were selected for and investigated with one containing a functional gene construct
designated alpha and the other having a non-functional gene construct designated beta. After six
generations of breeding the alpha fish, AquaBounty was able to establish a line of salmon
containing a single copy of the alpha gene construct. The eggs of the AquAdvantage Salmon that
will be farmed can be produced by chemically reversing the sex of a female that contains two
copies of the gene construct, and crossing it with a non-modified female in order to produce eggs
containing a single copy of the opAFP-GHc2 construct. Finally, these eggs are pressure treated in
order to induce triploidy, leaving many female offspring which are incapable of reproduction
(Aqua Advantage Salmon Ready, 2010).
Despite the FDAs findings and approval of the genetically-engineered AquAdvantage
salmon in November of 2015 and AquaBountys continued research since 1989, there are still
challenges facing the fishs introduction to market. Issues include hotly debated topics such as
the escape of farmed fish, public opposition towards genetically modified organisms, and the
ethicality of genetic modification. Public outcry has led to the demise of similar efforts by other
companies such as Otter Ferry Salmon and New Zealand King Salmon Company. In 2000, both
companies dropped their research after determining that due to consumer fear surrounding

GMOS, they would suffer market loss (Goubau, 2011). Again, while the genetically-engineered
salmon are able to grow twice as fast as wild types, critics still complain about the use of farms
and the use of a fish-based diet in addition to concerns already present surrounding the open
water farming of wild Atlantic Salmon. Despite the triploidy of AquAdvantage salmon, a low
percentage of the fish are actually able to reproduce, a fact which worries environmentalists due
to AquaBountys Panamanian maturation facility being built near a river. Escaped salmon could
potentially out-compete wild salmon for habitat and food and spread disease. Lastly, there is
concern over how ethical it is to engineer organisms. Robert H. Devlin from Fisheries and
Oceans Canada conducted reviewed over 80 studies in 2008 researching the growth, behavior,
and trait differences between modified and wild fish. He found that these engineered fish behave
differently, tending to spend more time near the surface of the water and to not associate with
each other. They also have elevated metabolisms, reduced immune functions, and reduced
predator responses (Rack, 2015).
Whether these AquAdvantage Salmon will be successful in the free market remains to be
seen, but whats important is that they are the first transgenic animal to be approved for sale and
consumption by the FDA (Ledford, 2015). This move could potentially spur the development of
many more genetically-engineered organisms and usher in a new age of agriculture/aquaculture.
Now that a major regulator like the FDA has given the green light, there will be more motivation
to develop and refine this technology. Seeing this technology expand and progress in the future is
exciting and I welcome the benefits it will bring..

References
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