IMPROVAFISH: Transcriptomics. IMPROVAFISH: Transcriptomics

As the human population surges towards 10 billion, the production and consumption of aquaculture products such as fish is expanding. Efficient and environmentally sustainable practices are therefore required to ensure long-term food security. To solve these challenges, attractive solutions include developing new feed ingredients and better broodstock genetics to improve fish production and welfare. Intriguingly, it has been shown that both feed and host genetics can modulate the microbiome of animals and thus influence its integral connection to host phenotype. The ambitious aim of ImprovAFish is to decipher the intimate functional coupling along the feedmicrobiome-host axis in an applied context, with the emphasis on a promising ‘next generation’ functional feed ingredient (beta- mannan) that is known to promote beneficial microbiota in production animals, including promising preliminary data in fish. Our approach is to jointly analyze how diet affects the metabolic function of the host and its microbiome as a single unit of action, using a novel and powerful framework called “holo-omics”. This entails monitoring how changes in enzymes and metabolites produced by microbiota, correlates with uptake and metabolism of nutrients in the gut and liver of the fish. By doing this across life stages, different feeds and with recordings of key performance indices, we aim to identify exploitable interactions between specific feed components and microbiome functions that can be used to improve fish phenotype. In addition, associations between broodstock genetic variation, microbiome composition and diet will be determined, which will facilitate selection for fish with preferred gut microbiota. Ultimately ImprovAFish will facilitate optimization of improved and sustainable feeding strategies that are specifically tailored to host genetics (or vice versa), with an emphasis on socially responsible outcomes facilitated by a dedicated Responsible Research and Innovation process.

随着全球人口逼近100亿大关，鱼类等水产养殖产品的生产与消费规模持续扩张。因此，亟需构建高效且环境友好的可持续养殖模式，以保障长期粮食安全。为应对这一挑战，颇具吸引力的解决方案包括开发新型饲料原料与更优良的亲鱼遗传种质，以此提升鱼类养殖产量与福利水平。
值得关注的是，已有研究证实，饲料与宿主遗传因素均可调控动物的微生物组，进而影响其与宿主表型的紧密关联。ImprovAFish项目的核心目标是，在应用场景中解析“饲料-微生物组-宿主”轴线上的内在功能耦合机制，重点聚焦一种极具潜力的“下一代”功能性饲料原料——β-甘露聚糖（beta-mannan）。该物质已被证实可促进养殖动物的有益菌群定植，在鱼类研究中也已积累了积极的初步实验数据。
本项目采用一种名为“全息组学（holo-omics）”的新型高效分析框架，将宿主代谢功能与微生物组作为统一作用单元开展联合分析。具体而言，我们将监测微生物组产生的酶与代谢物变化，如何与鱼类肠道及肝脏内的营养物质摄取与代谢过程建立关联。通过覆盖鱼类不同生命阶段、设置不同饲料配方实验组并记录关键性能指标，我们旨在识别特定饲料组分与微生物组功能之间的可利用互作关系，以此实现鱼类表型的优化改良。
此外，本项目还将明确亲代遗传变异、微生物组组成与饲料三者之间的关联，这将为筛选拥有理想肠道微生物组的养殖鱼类提供理论依据。最终，ImprovAFish项目将助力优化可持续的新型饲料策略，使其可针对宿主遗传特性进行定制（反之亦然），并通过专门的负责任研究与创新（Responsible Research and Innovation）流程，保障项目成果符合社会责任要求。