It may therefore be possible to use rRpL10a as an initial stimulator of early ovarian vitellogenesis, and another factor would then need to be found to stimulate the later stages of ovarian development during the 3–7 days after the administration of rRpL10a. This method will be further investigated to establish whether it may be more suitable than the eyestalk ablation method for stimulating vitellogenesis in shrimp broodstock. The FITC conjugation method has been widely applied in previous studies (Han et al., 2008 and Matsuda et al., 2011), and we used this technique to demonstrate that the rRpL10a protein is transported directly to the ovary as a target organ and not to the muscle after being injected into shrimp.