Genetic variation in disease resistance against White Spot Syndrome Virus (WSSV) in Liptopenaeus vannamei

White Spot Syndrome Virus (WSSV) is the most damaging pathogen in terms of production and economic losses for the shrimp sector world-wide. Estimation of heritability for WSSV resistance was made in this study to obtain necessary parameter inputs for broadening the breeding objectives of an ongoing selective breeding programme for Whiteleg shrimp (Liptopenaeus vannamei) that has focussed exclusively on improving growth performance since 2014. The present study involved a disease challenge test experiment using a total of 15,000 shrimps from 150 full- and half-sib families (100 individuals per family). Survival rates were recorded at six different experimental periods: 1-3d (S1), 1-5d (S2), 1-7d (S3), 1-9d (S4), 1-12d (S5) and 1-15d (S6) and were used as measures of WSSV resistance. There was significant variation in WSSV resistance among families studied. Quantitative-real time PCR analysis showed that the amount of viral titre (viral load) was significantly lower in high than low resistance families. Analyses of heritability were carried out using linear mixed model (LMM) and threshold logistic generalised model (TLGM). Both linear and threshold models used showed that the heritability (h2) for WSSV resistance was moderate in the early infection phases (S1-S4), whilst a low h2 value was observed for survival after 12 and 15 days of the challenge test (S5 and S6). The transformed heritabilities for WSSV resistance ranged from 1 to 31% which were somewhat lower than those estimated on the liability scale. Genetic correlations between survival rates measured over six different days post-infection were high and positive (0.82 to 0.99). The phenotypic correlations ranged from 0.31 ± 0.01 to 0.97 ± 0.01. The genetic correlations between body weights and WSSV resistance were negative. Our results on the heritability and genetic correlations show that improvement of WSSV resistance can be achieved through selective breeding in this population of Whiteleg shrimp