The mandarin fish (Siniperca chuatsi) is an important aquaculture fish. All-male mandarin fish culture has the advantages of higher profits, more uniform size and lower energy consumption of gonadal development. However, the lack of accurate sex-specific markers has hampered the all-male breeding of this species. Herein, we successfully adopted a next generation sequencing strategy to identify potential X chromosome-specific sequences in mandarin fish. First of all, we performed genome sequencing of three YY super-males, and then align the reads to XX genome to identified candidate X chromosome-specific regions. A total of 49 candidate X chromosome-specific contigs were identified with length ranging from 448 to 1189 bp. After PCR validation, four pairs of primers derived from two X chromosome-specific contigs, Ma-XB1, Ma-XB2, Ma-XC1, Ma-XC2, could successfully produce X chromosome-specific bands of 935 bp, 1105 bp, 850 bp and 1146 bp, respectively, with no band amplified in six YY super-males. In conclusion, based on YY genome sequencing and PCR validation, four X chromosome-specific markers were developed, which would promote the development of all-male breeding of mandarin fish.

鳜鱼 ( Siniperca chuatsi) 是重要的水产养殖鱼类。全雄鳜养殖具有利润更高、规格更均匀、性腺发育能耗更低等优点。然而，缺乏准确的性别特异性标记阻碍了该物种的全雄性育种。在这里，我们成功地采用了下一代测序策略来识别鳜鱼中潜在的 X 染色体特异性序列。首先，我们对三个 YY 超级雄性进行基因组测序，然后将读数与 XX 基因组对齐，以识别候选 X 染色体特定区域。共鉴定了 49 个候选 X 染色体特异性重叠群，长度范围为 448 至 1189 bp。PCR 验证后，四对引物来自两个 X 染色体特异性重叠群，Ma-XB1、Ma-XB2、Ma-XC1、Ma-XC2、可以成功地产生分别为 935 bp、1105 bp、850 bp 和 1146 bp 的 X 染色体特异性条带，在 6 个 YY 超级雄性中没有扩增条带。综上所述，在YY基因组测序和PCR验证的基础上，开发了4个X染色体特异性标记，将促进鳜鱼全雄性育种的发展。