www.sciencejournal.in Vol. 1 No. 1 (2012) ISSN: 2319–474X (Print); 2319–4758 (Online) © 2012 DAMA International. All rights reserved. 1 SUPEROXIDASE BANDINGS IN INDIAN AND EXOTIC CARPS Amita Saxena, Ningthoukhongjam Soranganba, Mishra D.P*. and Gaur A.K. ** Fishery Biology, College of Fisheries, G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar-263145, India. * Department of Biochemistry, CBSH, Pantnagar-263145, India. ** Department of Molecular Biology and Genetic Engineering, CBSH, Pantnagar-263145, India. ABSTRACT The production of culture and capture fishery of Indian major carps and Exotic carps coming to a standstill in recent years, even with various technical and managerial inputs, the question over its biodiversity has been ask frequently.. Isozyme pattern of SOD in gill, muscle, heart and kidney were also separated in native-PAGE (7% gradient). Polymorphic loci were not detected under the present study but all the enzyme activity were found synchronised with the feeding, metabolic, habitat and environmental factors. KEY WORDS: enzyme activity, Exotic carps, Superoxidase INTRODUCTION Genetic modification occurs inadvertently in a cultured population. Since there is no competition for food and fear for predators, a farmed fish population experiences different kinds of selection regimes unprecedented in natural waters. It becomes domesticated after some generation of breeding and culture, which bring about changes in the gene pool. Changes may also occur in morphology, physiology and/or behaviour of the domesticated fish (Robinson and Doyle, 1990). The composite or multi-species culture technologies so far developed are based on species manipulation and application of certain management practices. These technology no doubt have boosted the fish culture in several folds. However, at present it is felt that any further improvement in production may not be possible and the researcher gradually realizing the importance of other aspect such as genetic quality and improvement of the candidate species by fully exploiting their hitherto untapped genetic potentials. The various methods available earlier, much before the advent of biochemical and molecular (DNA) techniques for stock identification or to study the existence of different population in a given species were only the morphometric measurement and meristic counts. These methods however, do not provide the degree of polymorphism distinguishable by modern methods especially within species (Reddy, 1999). Technological advancement in molecular biology and biochemistry has led to the identification of a variety of discrete, inheritable and stable genetic markers. These markers can be used for addressing problems of relevance to the management and conservation of various fishery stocks. Among these the biochemical genetic techniques, especially the use of isozyme electrophoresis markers, were extensively used in fisheries, through the 1960s and 1970s. Isozymes are multi form of an enzyme that often appears in different molecular forms in a species. They are the forms to meet the varying metabolic conditions of an organism. More than 50% of the enzymes are known to occur as isozymes and are formed generally due to genetic causes. Electrophoretic analyses reveal qualitative differences in expression of isozymes locus/loci during embryonic development and in different adult tissues within a species. Isozyme gene expression pattern is co-dominant type which helps in analyzing the genotype more conveniently from the gel phenotype and doesn’t get influenced by the environmental factors. Any detectable changes in isozyme electrophoretic pattern between different types or individual reflect certain genetic variation and are thus regarded as good genetic markers (Padhi and Mandal, 2000). The technique is ideally suited to population studies as it is fairly rapid procedure to perform on a large scale, and a large number on unlinked loci that are dispersed throughout the genome can be screened simultaneously (Park and Moran, 1994). Moreover, it is relatively inexpensive and requires little in the way of specialized equipment. But since isozyme pattern cannot detect point mutations and conservative amino acid substitutions, they do not reveal all of the genetic variations actually present (Padhi and Mandal, 1995b). Molecular genetic markers have been applied to three fisheries areas in particular-stock structure analysis, aquaculture and taxonomy/systematic (Ward and Grewe, 1994) with varying degree of success (Carvalho and Hauser, 1994). All these techniques have their advantages and disadvantages in analysis of genetic variability in fishes (Ward, 2000; Ferguson and Danzmann, 1998). Some advantages of protein electrophoretic methods include their speed and simplicity; disadvantages include a requirement for fresh or frozen tissue, relatively low level of variation and uncertainty over whether the variability recorded is natural or subject to selective pressure. Major advantage of PCR based procedures include ease of sample collection and storage, access to either high or low variability DNA sequences by judicious selection of genomic regions, and use of non-coding regions to random data less liable to the influences of natural selection. Disadvantages include longer development time and slower collection of data, the need for greater technical expertise and other complicated and expensive equipments.