ABI Technologies to Help Alaska Researchers Genotype Wild Pacific Salmon

NEW YORK, April 29 (GenomeWeb News) - The Alaska Department of Fish and Game will expand a salmon genotyping project using Applied Biosystems' technology, the organizations said today.

The project's goal is to track migration patterns and intermixing of wild Pacific salmon populations, and to identify risk factors for the decline of the fish stocks.

Using a small piece of the salmon fin, department researchers will sequence and then genotype salmon DNA to select SNPs as markers for populations studies. These markes will be included in a standardized database, to be used by Pacific coastal nations, including the US, Russia, Japan, and Korea.

The researchers plan to use ABI's 3730 DNA analyzers, TaqMan SNP genotyping assays, and real-time PCR systems.