Dimapur, July 31 (EMN): A team of scientists from the Nagaland ICAR-National Research Centre on Mithun has published a ‘draft genome assembly’ of the Indian mithun (Bos frontalis) in the peer-reviewed journal BMC Genomics.
The institution issued on Wednesday a press release to the media informing about the development. The article can be accessed online.
In the study, the updates stated, the genome of an adult female mithun from Nagaland was sequenced using multiple next-generation sequencing (NGS) platforms.
The genome project on the Indian mithun was led by Dr. Sabyasachi Mukherjee, principal scientist at the ICAR-NRCM, the press release stated.
“While visiting Denmark on DBT Overseas Fellowship, Dr. Mukherjee also developed a collaboration on extensive bioinformatic analyses with the research team from Aarhus University, Denmark led by Dr. Goutam Sahana,” the press release stated.
This study reports the first-ever genome sequence of the Indian mithun, it stated.
“Compared to the earlier report of Chinese gayal genome, the mithun genome, reported by the Indian Scientists, is reasonably far more complete (>95%) having a better coverage of 91.5% and gene annotation with 28,044 protein-coding genes. The genomic alignments showed a high degree of similarity between mithun and cattle than other bovine species.”
The Bos frontalis is a unique bovine species distributed across the north-eastern states of India, Bangladesh, northern Burma and in Yunnan province of China.
“Approximately, 98% of mithun population of the world is found in India and as per 19th Livestock Census (2012), there is 0.30 million mithun in the country. Besides having a special socio-cultural status, mithun has tremendous potential for providing livelihoods to the region and is often referred to as "pride of North-East," the press release stated.
The institution stated that the ‘comprehensive assembly unravelled the genomic architecture of mithun to a great extent and will provide a reference genome assembly to the research community to elucidate the evolutionary history of mithun across its distinct geographical locations.’
