Large yellow croaker is an important marine culture species in China. Recently, the large yellow croaker industry is threatened by various disease problems, especially for the white spot disease, which is caused by parasite Cryptocaryon irritans. In the current study, we conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) for C. irritans resistance in two large yellow croaker populations (n = 264 and n = 480, respectively). We identified 15 QTL with explained genetic variance ranging from 1 to 8% in the two populations. One QTL on chromosome 23 was shared by the two populations, and three QTL had been reported in the previous study. We identified a lot of biological pathways associated with C. irritans resistance, such as hormone transport, response to bacterium, apoptotic process, acute inflammatory response to antigenic stimulus, and NF-kappa B signaling pathway. The genes casp8 and traf6 involved in regulatory network for apoptosis and inflammation were identified to be candidate genes for C. irritans resistance. Our results showed the complex polygenic architecture of resistance of large yellow croaker against C. irritans. These results would be helpful for the researches of the molecular mechanism of C. irritans resistance and genome-assisted breeding of large yellow croaker.

大黄鱼是我国重要的海洋养殖品种。近来，大黄鱼产业受到各种疾病问题的威胁，特别是白点病，这是由寄生虫白点虫引起的。在当前的研究中，我们对两个大型黄鱼种群（分别为n  = 264 和n  = 480 ）中的C. irritans抗性进行了全基因组关联研究 (GWAS )。我们在两个种群中鉴定了 15 个 QTL，其解释的遗传变异范围为 1% 至 8%。23 号染色体上的一个 QTL 为两个种群共有，在之前的研究中已经报道了三个 QTL。我们确定了许多与C. irritans相关的生物学途径抗性，如激素转运、对细菌的反应、细胞凋亡过程、对抗原刺激的急性炎症反应和 NF-κB 信号通路。参与细胞凋亡和炎症调节网络的基因casp8和traf6被鉴定为C. irritans抗性的候选基因。我们的研究结果表明，大黄鱼对C. irritans的抗性具有复杂的多基因结构。这些结果有助于研究刺激性白斑病的分子机制和大黄鱼的基因组辅助育种。