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. This information was made available through a press release statement issued by the institution.

 

The scientists from Nagaland reported the first de novo draft genome assembly of Indian mithun (Bos frontalis). The Scientists generated ≈250 Gigabyte (Gb) high quality reads from whole-genome deep sequencing platforms and assembled the sequence data using a hybrid assembly strategy. The final genome assembly constitutes a total length of 3.00 Gb.

 

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.

 

Mithun (Bos frontalis), a unique bovine species, isdistributed only inNorth-Eastern Hilly states of India,Bangladesh, northernBurma and inYunnan province ofChina. Approximately, 98% of mithun population of the world is found in India and as per 19thLivestock Census (2012), there is 0.30 million mithun in the country.

 

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.

 

“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.

 

Source: ICAR and Eastern Mirror

In the studythe genome of an adult female mithun from Nagaland was sequenced using multiple next-generation sequencing (NGS) platforms.