Prem Kumar Meher

ICAR-Central Institute of Freshwater Aquaculture · Fish Genetics and Biotechnology Division

Labeo catla (catla) is the second most commercially important and widely cultured Indian major carp (IMC). It is indigenous to the Indo-Gangetic riverine system of India and the rivers of Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar, and Pakistan. Despite the availability of substantial genomic resources in this important species, detailed information on the genome-...

Advent in the computational field has expedited to understand structural level information of proteins and their global network. In the present study, evolutionary and structural analysis of kisspeptin2 of Indian major carp, Catla catla were carried out using bioinformatics tools. The kisspeptin2 protein plays an important role in puberty leading t...

Simple sequence repeat markers also known as microsatellite markers have been used to answer several biological questions. Cultrinae is one of the thirteen subfamilies of family Cyprinidae encompassing several economically important freshwater aquaculture species. With the advancement of the next generation sequencing technologies and simultaneous...

Activin receptor type IIB (ActRIIB) is a transmembrane serine/threonine kinase receptor which plays a pivotal role in regulating the reproduction in vertebrates including teleost. Earlier studies have documented its importance in governing gonadal maturation in higher vertebrates. However, reports on the regulation of fish reproductive system by Ac...

Background Carp fish, rohu ( Labeo rohita Ham.) is important freshwater aquaculture species of South-East Asia having seasonal reproductive rhythm. There is no holistic study at transcriptome level revealing key candidate genes involved in such circannual rhythm regulated by biological clock genes (BCGs). Seasonality manifestation has two contrasti...

Activin receptor type IIB (ActRIIB) is a transmembrane serine/threonine kinase receptor which plays a pivotal role in regulating reproduction in vertebrates including teleost. Earlier studies have documented its importance in governing gonadal maturation in higher vertebrates. However, reports on regulation of fish reproductive system by ActRIIB ge...

Labeo catla is a widely cultured species in monoculture and polyculture systems of the Indian subcontinent. In this study, the complete mitochondrial genome sequence of catla was reconstructed from Oxford Nanopore sequence data. The mitochondrial genome is 16,600 bp in length (accession no. is MN830943) which is larger than the previously reported...

The walking catfish Clarias magur (Hamilton, 1822) (magur) is an important catfish species inhabiting the Indian subcontinent. It is considered as a highly nutritious food fish and has the capability to walk to some distance, and survive a considerable period without water. Assembly, scaffolding and several rounds of iterations resulted in 3484 sca...

Background Carp fish, rohu (Labeo rohita Ham) is important freshwater aquaculture species of South-East Asia having seasonal reproductive rhythm. There is no holistic study at transcriptome level revealing key candidate genes involved in such circannual rhythm regulated by biological clock genes (BCGs). Seasonality manifestation has two contrasting...

Although feed cost is the greatest concern in aquaculture, the inclusion of carbohydrates in the fish diet and their assimilation are still not well understood in aquaculture species. We identified molecular events that occur due to inclusion of high carbohydrates in the diets of genetically improved ‘Jayanti rohu’ Labeo rohita. To reveal transcrip...

Objective: Labeo catla (catla), one of the three Indian major carps, is native to the Indo-Gangetic riverine system of India as well as the rivers of Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Myanmar. Its higher growth rate and compatibility with other major carps, specific surface feeding habit, and consumer preference have increased its popularity in carp...

Carps constitute a very large group of freshwater fish belonging to the family Cyprinidae, and are predominant in aquaculture system accounting for �71–75% of freshwater fish production (FAO, 2018). The largest producer of carp is China (78.7%), followed by India (15.7%); the remaining is produced by Bangladesh, Myanmar, Vietnam, Indonesia and Paki...

Estimates of genetic parameters for growth and survival were obtained from data recorded on 16,718 rohu carp (Labeo rohita), the offspring of 311 sires and 257 dams from seven year-classes. The fish from the first five year-classes (1993 to 1997) were reared in both mono- and polyculture (together with catla and mrigal) earthen ponds, while the thr...

The present study was conducted in the water bodies of East Kolkata Wetlands to generate a primary database on fish diversity of West Bengal, India. 71 indigenous fish species belonging to 27 families were identified. The family Cyprinidae represented the largest diversity accommodating 14 genera and 23 species. According to IUCN (International Uni...

Catla catla is the second most important Indian major carp due to high growth rate and acceptance to consumers for food value. It is widely cultured in the Indian subcontinent as monoculture or polyculture. In the present study, genetic diversity among hatchery stocks (total 218 samples of catla) collected from different geographical regions of Ind...

Determination of genealogical relationship between broodstock and progeny is important to estimate selection response in aquaculture breeding programs. Currently, the application of microsatellite markers for parentage determination is gaining popularity in aquaculture. In the present study, 17 simple sequence repeat markers were evaluated for pare...

Here we report the reconstruction of the catla (Catla catla) complete mitochondrial genome sequence from low depth paired end Illumina sequencing. The genome is of 16,597 bp in size. Similar to other vertebrate mtgenomes, it consists of 13 protein-coding genes, 22 tRNAs, 2 rRNAs and a putative control region. The present mtgenome is 3 bp longer tha...

Genetic characterization of Puntius sarana with mitochondrial Cytochrome c oxidase I (COI) genes revealed that P. Sarana has 91% similarity with P. fasciatus followed by P. denisonii, P. chelynoides and P. brevis with 87, 86 and 86% similarity, respectively. Phylogenetic analysis also showed that P. sarana is closely related to P. fasciatus among a...

Labeo rohita, popularly known as rohu, is a widely cultured species in whole Indian subcontinent. In the present study, we used in-silico approach to resolve complete mitochondrial genome of rohu. Low-depth shotgun sequencing using Roche 454 GS FLX (Branford, Connecticut, USA) followed by de novo assembly in CLC Genomics Workbench version 7.0.4 (Aa...

Rohu is a leading candidate species for freshwater aquaculture in South-East Asia. Unlike common carp the monsoon breeding habit of rohu restricts its seed production beyond season indicating strong genetic control over spawning. Genetic information is limited in this regard. The problem is exacerbated by the lack of genomic-resources. We identifie...

Whole genome sequencing (WGS) using next generation sequencing technologies paves the way to sequence the mitochondrial genomes with greater ease and lesser time. Here, we used the WGS data of Clarias batrachus, generated from Roche 454 and Ion Torrent sequencing platforms, to assemble the complete mitogenome using both de novo and reference based...

Linkage map with wide marker coverage is an essential resource for genetic improvement study for any species. Sex-averaged genetic linkage map of Labeo rohita, popularly known as 'rohu', widely cultured in the Indian subcontinent, was developed by placing 68 microsatellite markers generated by a simplified method. The parents and their F 1 progeny...

Whole genome sequencing (WGS) using next generation sequencing technologies paves the way to sequence the mitochondrial genomes with greater ease and lesser time. Here, we used the WGS data of Clarias batrachus, generated from Roche 454 and Ion Torrent sequencing platforms, to assemble the complete mitogenome using both de novo and reference based...

This study was undertaken to assess the feasibility of microsatellite markers for resolving parentage in Labeo rohita (rohu) selective breeding programmes in lieu of conventional PIT tag marking. Ten microsatellite markers were used to assign offspring parentage. A total of 160 individuals were tested from eight full-sibling families. Eight highly...

Central Institute of Freshwater Aquaculture (CIFA), Bhubaneswar is one of the premiere research institutes of ICAR with a mandate to provide livelihood support to the farmers through R & D in respective fields.

The carcass traits and commercial characteristics of farmed freshwater Cirrhinus mrigala and Hypophthalmichthys molitrix were investigated to calculate yield data useful for programming semi-automated processing units. Specimens with average weights of 2500 and 3400 g were collected from both mrigal and silver carps, respectively. Samples were take...

The present study investigates carcass traits of farmed freshwater Catla catla for important information in calculating yield and/or providing data for programming machine/manual handling. For this purpose specimens of C. catla ranging from 1880 to 2150 g were collected from grow‐out culture ponds of the Central Institute of Freshwater Aquaculture,...

Labeo rohita (Ham.) also called rohu is the most important freshwater aquaculture species on the Indian sub continent. Monsoon dependent breeding restricts its seed production beyond season indicating a strong genetic control about which very limited information is available. Additionally, few genomic resources are publicly available for this speci...

The present research was carried out to assess the cellulolytic activity in fish GI tract. Existing protocols for terrestrial animals were modified and standardized for the estimation of different active components of cellulase enzyme complex (endoglucanase, exoglucanase, and β-glucosidase) in Ctenopharyngodon idella (grass carp). The standardized...

The present study was carried out to investigate the carcass traits of farmed freshwater Labeo rohita in relation to body size as important information to calculate yield and/or support for machine/manual processing. For this purpose ninety specimens were collected for nine weight groups from 600 to 1100 g, each group with a 100 g increment. Specim...

Development of species specific microsatellite markers using conventional approaches such as partial and enriched genomic library screening are costly and time consuming. Next generation sequencing is a promising methodology for acquisition of abundant microsatellites from the genome. In an effort to enrich the present microsatellite database for m...

Development of species specific microsatellite markers using conventional approaches such as partial and enriched genomic library screening are costly and time consuming. Next generation sequencing is a promising methodology for acquisition of abundant microsatellites from the genome. In an effort to enrich the present microsatellite database for m...

Two mapping pedigrees (1 intraspecific and 1 interspecific) were evaluated with 69 rohu microsatellite loci. Deviations from the expected Mendelian segregation ratios were tested and linkage relationship among the loci established. Interspecific mapping pedigree (rohu×kalbasu) was 5 times more informative than rohu F1 pedigree. Sixtyone loci got cr...

The Kendrapada sheep showed the highest interpopulation variability followed by Ganjam and local khurda sheep. The overall gene differentiation (G st) and the gene flow (N m) were 0.4458 and 0.6217, respectively. The Nei's highest unbiased measure of genetic distance of 0.4433 was found between Khurda and Ganjam sheep and lowest value of 0.2323 was...

Embryonic stem (ES)-like cells were derived from mid-blastula stage embryos of a freshwater fish, catla Catla catla, under feeder-free condition and designated as CCES cells. The conditioned media was optimized with 10% foetal bovine serum (FBS), fish embryo extract (FEE) having 100 µg ml(-1) protein concentration, 15 ng ml(-1) basic fibroblast gro...

Aeromonas hydrophila is a Gram-negative bacteria associated with many disease conditions of aquatic animals. Two rough attenuated variants were derived from two smooth virulent types of this bacterium by continuous passage separately in laboratory over a period of 8 years in brain-heart infusion agar. These variants were checked to be rough lipopol...

This paper reports on isolation and characterization of 8 microsatellite loci from a partial genomic library of Macrobrachium rosenbergii using DIG labeled dinucleotides, (GT)15 and (CT)15 as probes. Primers were designed and PCR conditions optimized for repeat arrays. Polymorphism was studied using 24 individuals collected from the wild. All the l...

Of the only known two Lagoon populations of Irrawaddy dolphins (Orcaella) in the world, one is residing in the Chilika Lagoon in Orissa state, India. In addition to accidental deaths in gill net fishery and mechanized boat operations, there has been exploitation of the species for their oil. Extreme patchy distribution and vulnerability to becoming...

Major species of Indian carp, namely catla (Catla catla), rohu (Labeo rohita) and mrigal (Cirrhinus mrigala) are the mainstay of Indian freshwater aquaculture, with an annual production of 1.8 million tonnes, representing more than 80% of the national aquaculture production.1 Among them, rohu tops the list in terms of production as well as populari...

Cholera has been reported in the state of Orissa, India during the past decades. An outbreak of diarrheal disease occurred during November 1 to November 9, 2000 in Rusi- pada village near Puri, which was inhabited by a population of approximately 560. During the outbreak, Vibrio cholerae O139 strains were isolated from clinical specimens collected...

Endotoxin, a lipopolysaccharide component of outer cell wall membrane of the Gram-negative bacteria is a factor responsible for a number of biological effects including immunostimulatory activities in different animal species including fish. In this study, L. rohita yearlings of weight ranging from 80 to 100g were injected intraperitoneally with 0....

Source/description: Major species of Indian carp, namely catla (Catla catla), rohu (Labeo rohita) and mrigal (Cirrhinus mrigala) are the mainstay of Indian freshwater aquaculture, with an annual production of 1.8 million tonnes, representing more than 80% of the national aquaculture production. 1 Among them, rohu tops the list in terms of productio...

Effect of dietary supplementation of n-3 and n-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) on reproductive performances in both sexes of an Indian major carp, Catla catla (Ham.), were investigated in terms of sperm quality, spawning response, fecundity and spawn recovery over a consecutive 2-year period. Sperm count and spermatocrit value were in the rang...

This study examined the food organisms found in the gut of freshwater mussels, Lamellidens marginalis L. A total of 34 taxa of food organisms were recorded, out of which 30 taxa belonged to phytoplankton and four taxa to zooplankton. Both the groups comprised three families each: Cyanophyceae (blue-green algae), Chlorophycea (green algae) and Bacil...

Different non-specific immune parameters and their seasonal changes in brood Indian major carp Labeo rohita reared in two major freshwater aquaculture regions of India viz. West Bengal and Orissa were investigated. It was undertaken for 2 consecutive years and included three main seasons of a year such as summer (March-May), rainy (July-September)...

Restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) of 16S rDNA PCR product was carried out for 41 isolates of Pseudomonas spp. isolated from freshwater culture systems. Twenty 16s rDNA genotypes were obtained by digestion with three restriction enzymes (Alu I, Hue III and Msp I). Genomic diversity was observed at both inter-and intra-species level Out...

Lack of immune competence in the early stages of life leads to severe mortality in larval stages of different fish species including Indian major carp (IMC). Investigation through indirect enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and agglutination test revealed a significant increase in specific serum antibody response in the brood fish of Indian...

Aeromonas hydrophila(Ah) strains isolated from diseased fish in India were studied for protein profiling using the SDS-PAGE protein fingerprinting profile pattern of whole cells of 12 local strains of A. hydrophilaand one reference strain (MTCC 646). Variability among the strains was observed. The average similarity between the 12 strains of A. hyd...

Abstract The major Indian carps namely rohu (Labeo rohita), catla (Catla catla), mrigal (Cirrhinus mrigala) and calbasu (Labeo calbasu) are important freshwater species of the Indian subcontinent constituting over 65% of the fish produce. In the present study, isolation of 12 microsatellite loci from rohu has been reported. Cross-species amplificat...

Labeo species constitute an important group of fish with intense diversity and potential for commercial aquaculture in many Southeast Asian nations including the Indian subcontinent. The present investigation involves the comparative analysis of randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) profiles of six Labeo species viz., L. bata (bata), L. calbasu...

Selection of fish disease resistance may be performed directly via survival and challenge data or indirectly via the identification of the underlying resistance markers responsible for the differential survival. In a preliminary study, the potential correlation of a variety of specific and nonspecific immune parameters with aeromoniasis resistance...

Antigenic sharing among the most commonly bacterial pathogens such as Aeromonas hydrophila, Edwardsiella tarda and Pseudomonas fluorescens of Indian major carps has been studied using immunological reactions such as cross-agglutination, disc diffusion and indirect enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The data were analysed using statistical a...

A feeding trial was conducted to study the effect of iso-energetic diets containing 250 (D1), 300 (D2), 350 (D3) and 400 g (D4) crude protein (CP) kg−1 dry matter (DM), in hybrid post-larvae of Clarias batrachus ♀ × Clarias gariepinus ♂. Triplicate groups of post-larvae with mean initial body weight 67±6 mg were reared in cement tanks ( m), in outd...

Larval mortality in Indian major carps is one of the major problems encountered in the pond culture system. The present investigation was carried out to investigate the proper age, duration of exposure, and optimum bacterin concentration for vaccinating rohu (Labeo rohita) and catla (Catla catla) at their early stages with a formalin killed Edwards...

The experiment of two 3×3 complete diallele crosses was carried out with four wild river stocks (Ganga, Yamuna, Brahmaputra and Sutlej) and one farmed stock (Local) of Rohu carp (Labeo rohita). The Local stock was included in both diallele crosses. In total, 864 fish were individually tagged at 6 months of age and reared for 14 months in three mono...

Information on the genetic structure of cultivable fish species is essential for studying molecular systematics and optimising fisheries management and fish farming. The random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) assay was evaluated for studying genetic relationships and diversities in four species of Indian major carps (Family Cyprinidae). Thirty-fou...

The role of carcass evaluation techniques in aquaculture research programs, especially in genetics, breeding, production management, feeding and nutrition, cannot be overemphasized. Knowledge of production efficiencies and growth potentials in relation to desired carcass attributes has provided an impetus to improvements in genetic selection techni...