The salmon produced by AquaBounty Technology is Atlantic salmon containing DNA from the Chinook salmon and the ocean pout. A wild Atlantic salmon specimen was inserted with the protein-coding sequence from a Chinook salmon’s growth hormone and the regulatory sequence, or promoter gene, of an ocean pout’s antifreeze protein gene. This developed what is called the salmon growth hormone transgene and results in a rapid-growth phenotype. This transgene was created and then injected into fertilized Atlantic salmon eggs.
The Chinook salmon growth hormone paired with the ocean pout regulatory sequence for the growth hormone allows the salmon to continue to grow in freezing temperatures, rather than to stop growth as water temperature decreases, as in wild salmon populations. Because of the ocean pout’s DNA, the genetically-modified salmon can continue producing growth hormone all year, thus growing at a faster rate than salmon without the transgene.