Odisha: Mangrove genome sequencing to help develop saline tolerance plants

Bhubaneswar: Mangrove, which was found in Bhitaranya and several other parts of Odisha, besides Sundarbans in the territory of West Bengal Intertidal Muara and Marshy, can survive the high salinity level.
Amazed by this adaptive mechanism, scientists have conducted a thorough study of mangrove species and found that his genes can help in developing drought and tolerant salinity in the future.
The research team consisting of the Institute of Life Sciences (ILS), Director of Bhubaneswar Ajay Parida and M Parani’s of the SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Tamil Nadu, has sorted the genome of one of the mangrove species that is very tolerant of salt – Avicennia Marina (Gray Mangrove, In Odia called Baani) – found in all mangrove habitats in this country.
This species grows optimally at 75% of sea water and tolerates more than 250% sea water.
It can be a rare phenomenon of excretion of 40% of salt through salt glands in the leaves.
“We have sorted almost 99% of genome species and aligning it to 31 species chromosomes.
This is the first report of the high-quality genome assembly for each mangrove species reported so far,” Parida said.
This study has been published in the latest edition of biology communication (journal group).
This is a high-level genome assembly for species because the researchers have been a collection of 456.6 mega base (MB) of the estimated Genom of Marina 462.7 MB (98.7% genome coverage) in 31 chromosomes.
MB is a long unit for DNA fragments.
The researchers have identified 31,477 protein coding genes of this species.
“We have created a group of salinity tolerant genes, namely salinome, consisting of 3,246 salinity genes and marked 614 of them for salinity tolerance.
These genes can be used to develop tolerant plants to salinity,” Parida, which has worked on mangroves and genometry For more than 25 years, said.
He added that the sequencing data of the mangrove genome would greatly help researchers throughout the world in the future.
Agricultural productivity is influenced globally because of limited water availability and land salinization and water.
Salinity is prevalent in around 900 million hectares globally (with an estimate of 6.73 million ha in India).
This caused an annual loss of 27 billion US dollars.
Sometimes saltwater enters agricultural land damages land and plants.
The genome resources produced in this study will pave the way for researchers to study the potential of genes identified to develop drought varieties and tolerant of salinity of important plant species of coastal areas, he added.
Mangroves work like a natural defense barrier to protect the coastline and provide habitat for a variety of terrestrial organisms.
Many species of sea fish merely depend on mangroves as a breeding place, spawning, and hatching.