| Summary: | As opposed to other animals, live bivalve shellfish cannot be sampled because of the high mortality associated with opening closed shells. In this paper, we present a new anesthesia method using an MgSO4 seawater solution for sampling live bivalve shellfish. In our experiment, genomic DNA was successfully extracted from mantle tissues of sampled Pacific oyster (Crassostrea gigas) and the DNA was used as a template for polymerase chain reaction (PCR), which indicated that 3 mm(3) of mantle tissue was enough for DNA extraction and subsequent molecular biology testing. The survival rate after the in vivo sampling was high (83.3%), indicating that the sampling method caused only slight harm to the oysters. Thus, MgSO4 anesthesia is a practical method for in vivo sampling of oysters and probably could be applied to other bivalve shellfish species as well, significantly promoting the application of molecular marker-assisted selection in bivalve shellfish breeding and the study of tissue injury and repair mechanisms in bivalve shellfish.
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