Construction and characterization of a bacterial artificial chromosome library for mandarin fish Siniperca chuatsi (Basilewsky).

Siniperca chuatsi (Basilewsky), a demersal piscivore, is an endemic freshwater fish species in China. For the purpose of genomics research, we have constructed the first bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) library for S. chuatsi. The BAC library comprised a total of 84,480 clones with an average insert size of 124.6 kb and less than 2.5% empty clones, corresponding to a 10.5-fold coverage of the S. chuatsi genome. The probability of isolating genes of interest was more than 99%. To validate the library, we screened 220 superpools and found that 1-19 were positive for six SSR markers, while none was positive for two mitochondrial gene markers. Therefore, the S. chuatsi BAC library will provide useful genomics resources and tools for cloning, functional genomics research and identification of economically important genes in this species.