Transcriptomics of a Giant freshwater prawn, Macrobrachium rosenbergii: de novo assembly, annotation and marker discovery

Giant freshwater prawn (GFP or Macrobrachium rosenbergii), is the most economically important freshwater crustacean species contributing to the global prawn aquaculture industry and great interest is now focused on improving GFP productivity in culture. Despite a significant industry, there is little known about the genomics of this species. Hence, we subjected the M. rosenbergii transcriptome to 454 pyrosequencing in order to identify potential genes that influence individual growth performance. To our knowledge this constitutes the first study to document genomic characteristics in GFP using 454 pyrosequencing. Transcriptomic data will provide an invaluable resource for developing a comprehensive understanding of GFP genomic structure and function. These data along with future functional studies will lead to identification and characterization of genes influencing growth performance in M. rosenbergii, and can be applied in GFP breeding programs as markers to speed up the rate of stock improvement for culture.